newsminer.com

FAIRBANKS — The Alaska Nanooks took nine of 11 events — and got wins from six individual swimmers — to complete a weekend sweep against California University of Pennsylvania on Saturday afternoon at the Patty Center Pool.

Alaska opened the meet with a 400-yard medley relay win from Mariya Pavlovskaya, Courtney Nichols, Kelly Becker and Felina Rosadiuk.

Those four swimmers added individual wins, as Becker claimed the 200 freestyle, Rosadiuk grabbed the 50 free, Nichols took the 200 IM and Pavlovskaya prevailed in the 100 backstroke and 100 breaststroke.

Kinsey Laine tacked on a win in the 1,000 freestyle and Heidi Tilicki took the 500 free.

But coach Scott Lemley singled out a different swimmer for her performance.

“I thought the swimmer of the meet was freshman Meghan O’Leary,” Lemley said in an e-mail. “She swam two lifetime bests in the 200 and 500 freestyles and then split a 56.74 to help us win the final (400 freestyle) relay sealing the deal for the Nanooks.”

The Nanooks won Saturday’s meet by 32 points after edging California by just 13 points on Friday evening.

“The score of 118 to 86 really spoke to how well our girls bounce back after only 16 hours of rest,” Lemley said.

Melissa Gates of California edged Rosadiuk in the 100 freestyle to set a new pool record of 53.37 seconds.

The Nanooks next host Kutztown University from Pennsylvania on Oct. 30-31 in their final home meets of the season.

“We’ll drop our yardage and intensity a bit next week to videotape the girls strokes underwater and make technical corrections,” Lemley said, “and then ramp up again for a month of power-based work.”

Contact the News-Miner sports department at 459-7581.