MALIBU, California – The second annual Rodionoff Invitational got underway on Friday for the Pepperdine women's swim and dive team. Aided by seven first-place finishes, the Waves have a sizable lead over rival Loyola Marymount, 235-141.
MEET RECAP
Scoring for this meet is being done by division and Pepperdine and LMU were the only two Division I teams competing today. Biola, Cal Lutheran, Westmont and The Master's competed against each other in separate divisions.
The women's 3-meter diving competition began the day. Pepperdine dominated the event from start to finish as the Waves' six divers took up the top six spots on the leaderboard. Two freshmen led the way with
Amanda Wong (Santa Ana, Calif./Foothill HS) coming in first with a score of 232.65. Narrowly coming in second was
Delainey Pisaruk (Phoenix, Ariz./Pinnacle HS) after a 228.15 showing. Rounding out the top three was
Lexie Martin (Keller, Texas/Keller HS) thanks to a 224.85 performance.
In swimming, Pepperdine flourished against their PCH Cup rival. The squad of
Alexandra Browne (Arlington, Va./Washington-Liberty HS),
Maddie McLeay (Omaha, Neb./Millard North HS),
Lexi Fok (Moraga, Calif./Campolindo HS) and
Anna Ryan (Alamo, Calif./Monte Vista HS) opened the swim portion with a 1:38.75 showing in the 200 free relay, taking first.
Success was found individually as well. Head-to-head winners against the Lions included
Charli Sunahara (Chino, Calif./Ruben S. Ayala HS), who raced the 200 IM in 2:11.64, fellow freshman
Kylie Taylor (Eugene, Ore./Churchill HS) who swam the 200 back at a 2:07.33 clip, sophomore
Jessica Calderoni (Los Altos, Calif./Sacred Heart Preparatory) who completed the 200 fly in 2:10.03, freshman
Lexi Haymart (El Dorado Hills, Calif./Ponderosa HS), in the 1000 free, recording a time of 10:39.77, good for eighth all-time on Pepperdine's list, and
Elliot Easton (Tampa, Fla./Berkeley Preparatory School) going 54.67 in the 100 free.
In addition, seven individuals and a relay team came in second.
San Diego will join the Division I competition on Saturday.
QUOTABLE
Head coach
Ellie Monobe said: "Diving has been very impressive the last few days. Seeing our freshmen take the lead and show consistency, not being able to do a whole lot of 3-meter diving early on, I think they did a great job. We're looking forward to seeing what the 1-meter brings tomorrow.
"As for swimming, we have put a lot of different relay scenarios together and I think the women did well. Some standouts were our 200 free relay, the 'A' leg – that was great splits for where we are right now and some of the workload we have been doing. A lot of our girls were just off their best times in the 200 fly.
Jessica Calderoni was a big standout. She was fourth overall in the conference last year and today posted a time that would be top-eight right now.
Charli Sunahara also had some great swims today. She's going to be an awesome staple for our breaststroke and stroke groups.
Lexi Haymart, our distance and overall freestyler went down to the 50 and all the way up to the 1000 – we're excited to see how things go for her. We're looking forward to another day of racing tomorrow."
NEXT UP: Pepperdine finishes its week with the second day of the Rodionoff Invitational on Saturday. Diving begins at 9 a.m. with swim to follow at 10:30 a.m. The meet will be streamed live on the WCC Network.
FOLLOW: Follow @WavesSwimDive on Facebook and Twitter for immediate updates, results and more. Go to pepperdinewaves.com for all information, releases and schedules.
