BATON ROUGE, La. – The Purple and Gold Intrasquad meet hosted at the LSU Natatorium ushered in a new season for the LSU Swimming and Diving team, as the Gold team defeated the Purple team, 307-184, Saturday morning.
The Gold team, led by team captains Mitch Mason and Jenna Bridges, got off to a fast start and won the first three events of the meet. Overall, the Gold team had an impressive showing, touching the wall first in 21 of the 26 timed events.
The Gold team began the meet by winning both the men’s and the women’s 200-yard medley relays and Katarina Milutinovich won the first individual event in the 200-yard freestyle with a time of 1:55.23. The Purple team acquired their first victory via freshman Karlo Percinic, who clocked a 1:40.75 in the 200 free, out-touching freshman Jere Hribar, the 6-8 freestyle specialist from Croatia.
From there, the Gold team went on a run of consecutive victories, winning the 100-back events, the 100-breast events, and the women’s 200-yard butterfly. The 2023 SEC Champion in the 200-back, Ella Varga, won the 100-back with a time of 54.24. On the men’s side, Mason, who was named as a member of the United States National team, took first place in the 100-breast with a time of 54.92.
Milutinovich finished the meet with three individual wins including the 200-yard freestyle, 50-yard freestyle and 100-yard freestyle.
In the diving well, Maggie Buckley and Carson Paul placed first with respective scores of 290.78 and 343.95. On the women’s side, Helle Tuxen claimed second (283.58) and Montserrat Gutierrez Lavenant took third (263.10). On the men’s side, Zayne Danielewicz placed second with a score of 269.48, and Thomas Dowling, a transfer from Louisville, claimed third with a score of 267.60.
The Gold team divers garnered 22 total points and added it to the swimming total of 285, while the Purple team divers added 10 points to the swimmer’s 174 points.
The Tigers move onto outside competition for the remainder of their schedule with the first meet taking place in Salt Lake City at the Ute Natatorium. LSU will host the Arkansas Razorbacks five days later on October 12 at 1 p.m. CT inside the LSU Natatorium.