Swim team breaks school records at Pac-12 Championship

The WSU swim team finished eighth in the Pac-12 Swimming and Diving Championships Saturday night in Federal Way with a score of 334 points.

Stanford won 11 of the 14 races to claim first place with a total score of 1,126 points. The University of California, Berkley finished in second with 953 points and the University of Southern California came in third with 762 points.

Throughout the four-day event, the Cougars set all-time school records, and standout freshmen Angela Mavrantza and Ryan Falk continued to show they can compete with top-ranked swimmers in the nation.

Mavrantza took 18th place in the 200-yard breaststroke with a final time of 2:14.09 in the event, good enough to put the freshman in fourth all-time in program history for the race. Fellow freshman Falk finished 24th (16:54.63) in the 1,650-meter freestyle.

WSU junior Hannah Bruggman, Mavrantza, junior Anna Brolin, and senior leader Addisynn Bursch took eighth place overall in the 200-yard medley relay (1:39.65). The relay team earned 44 points in its performance, breaking a WSU record for the 800-yard freestyle.

Addisynn Burcsh, from Spokane, broke the school record in the 200 individual medley preliminaries (1:59.34) on Thursday, a record she set in the Pac-12 Championships last year. Bursch went on to finish in 15th place with a time of (1:59:51).

On Friday, Bursch followed up her performance by again breaking her own record in the 400-meter individual medley, finishing with a time of (4:14.95).

“She is a tough and disciplined swimmer,” WSU Head Coach Tom Jager said. “It is fun to watch her swim.”

Bruggman, from Wenatchee, also notched her name at the top of the program’s record books on Friday. Bruggman finished the preliminaries of the 100-yard backstroke with a time of 54.46, breaking a WSU record.

The Cougars went into the final day of the event in eighth place, and although the team could not make up any ground, Jager acknowledged the Cougars’ effort.

“The Cougs swam tough on the last day,” Jager said. “Great leadership from our seniors. I am proud the way they represented WSU.”

The 400-yard relay team, which consist of seniors Bursch, Haley Rose Love, Haily Johnson, and junior Bruggman, concluded the event for the Cougars by recording its best time of the season (3:21.38). The eighth-place finish gave the team 44 of its 344 total points.

The team finished the 2016-17 regular season with a (4-3) record.