COLUMBIA, Mo. – After winning three individual events at the 2020 Missouri Valley Conference Swimming and Diving Championships, while posting a pair of meet records, Kierston Farley-Sepe was named the league's Swimmer of the Year on Saturday. The senior is Illinois State's first Valley Swimmer of the Year since Julie Cocks was given the honor in 2004. Additionally, first-year head coach Caitlin Hamilton helped guide the Redbirds to a fourth-place finish – their highest finish in three seasons.
"This meet was a total team effort and I think coming in, our focus was on having each other's backs and focusing on the things we could control," Hamilton shared. "Each session, we just kept reminding the team of that, to enjoy the process and to have fun. To move from fifth to fourth – that's all we could ask for."
IN THE POOL
Six season best performances were turned in during the preliminary round on Saturday in three different events:
Morgan Rosser collected nine points for the Redbirds in the 1,650-yard freestyle, finishing ninth overall with a time of 17:25.64. In the 200-yard backstroke final, Isabel Veliz and Emily Keebler took more time off their season bests in the event, finishing 10th and 19th overall, respectively, with times of 2:02.20 and 2:06.93, respectively. Katie Tillotson earned a bronze medal in the 100-yard freestyle with a season best time of 51.28. In the 200-yard breaststroke, Madyson Morse finished fifth with a season best time of 2:18.21, while Jensen Keck finished closely behind with a time of 2:20.46, good for eighth place.
Kierston Farley-Sepe won her third event of the championship – the 200-yard butterfly – with an ISU school record time of 1:58.82, while teammate Haley Rivera earned a silver medal in the event with a time of 2:02.66. Sarah Hein and Lauren Naeger turned in the ninth and 12th-fastest times, respectively, in the event as well, as the quartet accounted for 51 team points.
ON THE BOARDS
Caroline Lecoeur capped a memorable championship with a fifth-place finish in the 3-meter dive, posting a score of 267.50 in the event.
GoRedbirds.com: Your online source for Illinois State Athletics, tickets, Weisbecker Scholarship Fund gifts, multimedia, Redbird merchandise, photos and more.
