EDMOND, Okla. (Sept. 25, 2021) – Sophomore
Cheyenne Parks and
Mallory Mead each won two individual events and Oklahoma Christian picked up nine wins overall as the Eagles opened their women's swimming season Saturday in the annual Sam Freas Invitational at the Mitch Park YMCA pool.
OC clearly was the dominant team in the meet that included eight teams but didn't feature team scoring. The other seven squads in the meet combined for only five event wins, with only Sterling (Kan.) and fellow NCAA Division II program Texas-Permian Basin also winning more than one event.
The versatile Parks, from Guthrie, won the 100-yard backstroke in 1:00.62 as well as the 200 butterfly in 2:08.48, taking the latter event by nearly 15 seconds. She also swam a leg on the OC squad that took the 200 medley relay in 1:51.30, joining
Vivian Pitsch,
Hannah Day and
Olivia Rollen.
Mead, a sophomore from Timonium, Md., also won events using two strokes – the 1,000 freestyle (11:03.06) and 200 backstroke (1:39.42).
Other event winners for the Eagles included sophomore
Hope Hill of Santa Clarita, Calif. (200 freestyle in 2:00.76), freshman
Laura Byars of Lubbock, Texas (500 freestyle in 5:24.77) and Pitsch, a freshman from Koblenz, Germany. The Eagles' 400 freestyle relay group of freshman
Julia Flores of Brazil, freshman
Olivia Rollen of Edmond, Hill and freshman
Jaiden Branstrom of Lenexa, Kan., also won in 3:42.77.
"We had some nice bright spots on the women's side," OC coach
Josh Davis said, singling out the performances of Parks, Mead and Pitsch. "We've trained them really hard the last two weeks, after our intrasquad meet, so they're kind of tired. They've been going harder in the weight room, harder in the pool. We didn't rest them for this meet and they felt it, but I'm proud of them for fighting hard."
The Eagles' next meet will be Oct. 8, when they will compete in a dual at Henderson State (Ark.). The day after that, they'll visit Ouachita Baptist (Ark.) for a dual. Both those schools are located in Arkadelphia, Ark.
Josh Davis discusses Saturday's meet:
https://youtu.be/wJASqmrF9yw
