The women’s swim team sunk this weekend in a meet against University of Fairbanks, Alaska’s women’s swim team.

A select group of women from the swim team competed in a two-day meet against the Nanooks. Fairbanks supplied 14 tickets for the women’s swim team and members were chosen based off individual times recorded in the first two meets.

Senior Angela Kirschner said a few women traveled to Alaska two years ago and the team performed better this year, despite swimming after a long day of travel.

“Comparing this year and sophomore year when I went to Alaska, I think our team this year was really able to keep up with them and give them some good competition,” Kirschner said.

Kirschner said Fairbanks is one of the tougher teams in the Pacific Collegiate Swim and Dive Conference, but also said both teams competed well and have their own strengths.

“I think where we’re stronger is in the stroke events and the IM events. They have a lot of fast freestylers, but I think we have a lot of really fast stroke swimmers,” Kirschner said.

FINISHING STRONG

Although the women worked hard, the team overall could not rise above the fast swimmers on Fairbank’s team and lost 97-126 on the first day and 85-119 on the second. Despite two losses, the women swam well and finished strong in a few individual events.

After winning two distance freestyle events last week, senior Abby Blake took another first place finish in the 1,000-yard freestyle on the first day. However, Blake came in second in the 500-yard freestyle due to the addition of Fairbanks freshman Cassidy Heaton.

Sophomore Lisa Tixier had two first place finishes in the 200-yard freestyle and 100-yard butterfly events. Kirschner came in second in the 100-yard freestyle.

NEEDING SOME WORK

The women also swam strong on the second day and the meet had an interesting twist when Tixier tied Fairbanks freshman Abby Blackstone with a time of 5:24:00 in the 500-yard freestyle. Blake recorded a second place finish in the 1650 freestyle, but Heaton also took first in this event by 28 seconds. In addition, junior Christina Ali finished first in the 50-yard freestyle and freshman Rebecca Brant came in second in the Women’s 200-yard butterfly. Kirschner, Blake, Ali and Tixier shined when they took first place in the 400-yard freestyle relay.

Kirschner said Fairbank’s team had stronger flip turns, which helped them earn faster times in comparison to Biola.

“A lot of our turns need some work. I think we all looked really strong in our swims, but the Alaska girls would catch up or get ahead of us,” Kirschner said.

Kirschner also said the team will spend more time practicing the technical aspects of their strokes.

“We’re going to work on moving forward and just doing really good underwaters off our turns, just those little things that can make a huge difference in our races on the technique side of it,” Kirschner said.

SIGHTEEING AROUND ALASKA

The women also had opportunities to go sightseeing around Alaska. They ventured to a small city called North Pole and saw “Santa’s House,” which has real reindeer, Christmas decorations and souvenirs. They also visited the Alaska Pipeline.

Both the men and women will compete against Azusa Pacific University on Nov. 7. at APU.