With its exhibitions, the Pentathlon and the Blue and Gold Meet, out of the way, the Lumberjack swim and dive team welcomed Kansas to the Wall Aquatic Center to open up the home season.

The Jayhawks rolled past the Lumberjacks 193-103, setting nine pool records along the way.

“Knowing that we would have set three pool records makes it a little easier to take a loss like that; overall, though, I think we swam okay,” said head coach Andy Johns. “It is early, and I think we are getting better every meet; Kansas is very good.”

Kansas got the meet going by winning the 200-meter medley relay with a time of 1:57.85, setting a new pool record. 

The Jayhawks “A” relay team finished ahead of NAU’s “A” relay team who touched the wall with a time of 1:58.19, which also broke the old pool record. 

Starting with the 100-meter backstroke, which was the fourth event of the meet, the Jayhawks set pool records in five consecutive events.

Iuliia Kuzhil set the record in the 100-meter backstroke with a time of 1:04.82. The top NAU finisher was freshman Chalene Dirks-Ryan who came in third with a time of 1:07.58.

Danielle Herrman won the 100-meter breaststroke with a record time of 1:12.03. Junior T.J. Williams was the top NAU finisher in third place with a time of 1:15.09.

Ashley Leidigh  was first in the 200-meter fly with a pool-record time of 2:19.76. It was the first of Leidigh’s two individual victories on the day. Junior Kimber Morrelli took fourth place in the event with a time of 2:25.58.

Maria Mayrovich   touched first in the 50-meter freestyle in 26.38, and then won the next event, the 100-meter freestyle, with a time of 57.35 — both pool records. 

The Jayhawks set two more pool records, in the 200-meter breaststroke and the 100-meter fly.

Highlights for the Lumberjacks came in the 50-meter freestyle. 

Lumberjack junior Rachel Foe came in second, being out-touched by Mayrovich. Foe finished the race with a time of 26.98, 0.6 of a second behind Mayrovich.

Foe came close to victory again in the 100-meter fly. Foe finished with a time of 1:04.07, which would have been a pool record had Leidigh not edged out Foe by one-quarter of a second.

“A lot of girls swam faster than yesterday; I swam faster than yesterday, too,” Foe said, referring to the Lumberjacks’ Blue and Gold meet held the previous day. “Kansas is a great team, and we came into the meet knowing they were a great team, and we still swam well.”

The closest race of the meet was the final event of the afternoon, the 200-meter freestyle relay. While it was back and forth the entire race, once again the Jayhawks finished just ahead of the Lumberjacks.

Kansas finished with a time of 1:46.40, while NAU finished one-tenth of a second behind them with a time of 1:46.50. Both times broke the pool record set by Rice in 2006.

In the diving events Kansas made it a sweep with Megan Proehl winning the 1-meter dive and Erin Mertz taking first in the 3-meter dive. 

Proehl tallied with 271.58 points, finishing ahead of sophomore Taryn Harris from NAU, who completed her dives with a score of 257.63.

NAU finished second through fourth in the 1-meter diving event. Mertz from Kansas scored a 288.68 in the 3-meter dive, finishing ahead of teammate Hannah McMacken who scored a 286.65. 

Harris once again was NAU’s top finisher, with a score of 274.65 coming in third place.

The Lumberjacks know they have to work on the little things before their next meet.

“We need to work on the small things like turns, starts, breakouts — all the things that we repeatedly do in practice,” said sophomore Kate Schafer. 

After a week off, the Lumberjacks will return to the pool for a meet in Albuquerque, N.M. on Nov. 1 against BYU.

After they face BYU, the Jacks will hit the road, traveling to Moscow, Idaho to take on the University of Idaho on Nov. 14. The Lumberjacks defeated the Vandals in a meet last season.

After their meet with the Vandals, the Lumberjacks will travel to Pullman, Wash. to face Washington State Nov. 15.  

The Cougars defeated the Lumberjacks in Flagstaff last year 157-137.

The swim team will have some time off after the Washington State meet.

The dive team however, will travel south to compete at the University of Arizona Diving Invite in Tucson.

The swim and dive team will return to the Wall Aquatic Center Dec. 6 with a meet against New Mexico State.

“Going back-to-back weekends is good for our girls, and they need to learn how to do that because the conference meet is three days in a row,” Johns said. “I’m glad we don’t have a meet for two weeks so we can get back to some training and try to do better in two weeks.”