It was a great night to be inside the OU Aquatic Center on a cold Halloween night as the Oakland (5-1) women’s team swam against Ohio (2-1) and Youngstown State (3-2) in a dual meet and won both: 202-94 versus Youngstown State and 155-131 against Ohio.

The first event of the night was the 200-yard medley relay. Ohio came in first followed by two Oakland teams. The next event was the 1000-yard freestyle. First place was Bianca Hauzer from Ohio, followed by Madison Aranda of Youngstown State and Arynn de Leeuw from Oakland.

The 200-yard freestyle was won by Viktoria Orosz from Youngstown State. Nicki Flynn from Oakland came in second and Bianca Hauzer from Ohio in third. The 100-yard backstroke first heat was next and Ashley Dow of Youngstown State took first place behind her was Addy Ferguson from Ohio and Kyra Reitveld from Oakland.

The second heat Tori Bagan of Ohio finished first ahead of Takara Martin and Melissa VanderMeulen from Oakland. In the 200-yard butterfly Laura Dawson of Ohio came in first, but Patricia Ashcan and Stella Pasalidou finished second and third respectively.

In the 50-yard freestyle Holly Morren and Allison Bellford from Oakland came in first and second place, while Haley Clark from Ohio came in third. In 3-meter diving Tricia Grant from Oakland came in first, followed by McKenzie Stelter and Megan Siford from Youngstown State.

At the first intermission of the meet, Oakland were definitely in the hunt. They were in top three every race.

“Definitely saw some improvement tonight. A little bit easier because it was at home,” said OU head coach Pete Hovland. “We got to keep an eye on the prize.”

By the second intermission of the meet, it looked like Oakland could win. Oakland had won three including a sweep of the second heat of the 200-yard breaststroke. The races that Oakland didn’t win, the Golden Grizzlies always had someone in second, third or both.

Next was the 400-yard individual medley where Patricia Ashcan from OU came in first, followed by Myriah Ariza-Balter from Ohio and Stella Pasalidou from OU. 

“I thought we raced real well tonight,” Hovland said. “I thought we finished our races a little bit better than we did last week.”