BATON ROUGE, La. – The Purple team defeated the Gold team by a score of 125-105 in the Purple & Gold Intrasquad, as the LSU swimming and diving team kicked off the new season Saturday morning in the LSU Natatorium.
The Purple team was led by captains Michaela de Villers, Carson Paul, and Jacob Pishko. Team captains on the Gold team were Megan Barnes, Jere Hribar, and Sofia Sartori.
In the first 12 events of the morning, the Gold team touched the wall first seven times. The squad took victories in both the men’s and women’s 200-IM relays as well as individual victories from Sartori, Hribar, Zoe Carlos-Broc, Stepan Goncharov, and Volodymyr Lisovets. The Purple team secured the remaining five of the first twelve victories, featuring top spots from de Villiers, Nicole Santuliana, Nikola Simic, Caleb Ellis, and Martina Bukvic.
Despite winning fewer events, the Purple team had better overall placement, so the Purple squad went into the first 15-minute break of the day leading the Gold squad by a score of 56-51.
Of the next 10 events, the Purple team added 49 points due to victories from Ellis, de Villiers, and Bukvic. The Gold team added 46 points coming from Sartori, Goncharov, Lisovets, Bako, Hribar, and Carlos-Broc touching the wall first in their respective events. This brought the total score to 105-97 in favor of the Purple team at the final break.
In the diving well, the Purple team received 11 points from Paul and Morgan Lalonde, and the Gold team added four points from Travis Keith and Eve Nelson.
The last event of the day was the mixed 200-free relay. De Villiers, Simon Meubry, Avery Littlefield, and Diggory Dillingham of the Purple team picked up the victory, securing the 125-105 win.
The Tigers will return to action for outside competition Oct. 10-11 at the Robson & Lindsey Aquatics Center in Dallas, Texas, for the SMU Classic, the first official meet of the new season.