VALPARAISO, Ind.—The University of Evansville men's and women's swimming teams had a strong start to their 2022-23 season on Friday at Valparaiso, while divers Madison Rollett (Evansville, Ind./Reitz), Valorie Marx (Evansville, Ind./Reitz) and Levi McKinney (Boonville, Ind./Boonville) impressed in a diving competition against the University of Southern Indiana on the UE campus.
Swimming-wise, the UE women won all 11 races against the Beacons, while the men won ten of the 11 races. Overall, UE took home a 137-65 victory on the women's side and a 149-56 victory in the men's competition. In fact, in the women's competition, Evansville was not beaten by a single Valparaiso swimmer in any of the 11 races.
"Overall, I thought it was a great way to start the season," said UE swimming and diving head coach Stuart Wilson. "I saw some different people step up today, and it was also good to see our new swimmers get their first taste of Division I competition. Overall, a lot of positives today."
Sophomore Sveva Brugnoli (Rome, Italy) and senior Sarah Jahns (Lilburn, Ga./Parkview) led UE women's dominance, as they were undefeated in all three swims they competed in. Brugnoli won the individual titles in the 50-Yard Freestyle (25.01) and 100-Yard Butterfly (57.72), while teaming with seniors Sage Moore (Lexington, Ohio/Lexington) and Sonsoles Aguayo (Jerez, Spain) and junior Iryna Tsesiul (Minsk, Belarus) to cruise to the title in the 200-Yard Medley Relay in a time of 1:48.40. Meanwhile, Jahns dominated both the 500 Free (5:15.11) and 1,000 Free (10:40.07), and led off UE's victory in the 200-Yard Free Relay (1:41.50), teaming with seniors Allison McDonald (Cape Girardeau, Mo./Cape Central) and Maya Cunningham (Yakima, Wash./Eisenhower) and junior Abigail Groenewold (Lombard, Ill./Timothy Christian).
On the men's side, senior Riccardo Di Domenico (Johannesburg, South Africa), junior Jackson Caudill (Mount Sterling, Ky./Montgomery County), and sophomore Daniel Santos Lopez (Madrid, Spain) were undefeated in the pool on Friday. Di Domenico won both the 100-Yard (46.40) and 200-Yard Freestyle (1:40.97) events, while teaming with Santos Lopez, junior Alon Baer (Gesher HaZiv, Israel) and sophomore Benjamin Hasanovic (Innsbruck, Austria) to win the 200-Yard Medley Relay (1:32.51). Caudill, meanwhile, won both distance freestyle events, winning the 500-Yard race (4:44.75) and 1,000-Yard race (9:47.47). Lopez went a perfect three-for-three in the pool, winning the 200 Medley Relay, the 100-Yard Butterfly (50.99) and the 200-Yard Freestyle Relay (1:26.02) along with sophomore Jakob Grundbacher (Thalwil, Switzerland), junior Grant Kay (Ellicott City, Md./Hebron), and freshman Mohammed Rashed (Manama, Bahrain).
Diving-wise, Rollett and McKinney swept the one-meter and three-meter competitions on the women's and men's sides. Rollett dominated on the one-meter board, posting a personal-best mark of 253.50 to just miss posting an NCAA Zone-qualifying score by 12 points in the season-opening competition. Marx also posted a collegiate-best one-meter score of 217.88 to place second. McKinney, meanwhile, posted scores of 254.03 in the one-meter competition, and 247.35 in the three-meter competition to best high school teammate Lane Pollock of USI in the men's competition.
"I was really pleased with what I saw today out of the divers," said UE assistant/diving coach Dustin Bredemeier. "To have both Maddie and Val post personal-best scores in the first meet of the year is obviously a great way to start, and I thought that Levi did some very good things in his first collegiate meet. Overall, I am very pleased."
The Purple Aces are back in action again next Friday, when the UE women take part in the MVC Showcase in Carbondale, Illinois, while the UE men will battle Southern Illinois and Missouri State in a two-day meet in Carbondale.
