Penelope Yamauchi (Santa Rosa, Calif.) is a senior swimmer on the Arizona State swimming and diving team. Follow her blog as she updates you on the Sun Devils and their trek into postseason competition. For more about Penelope visit her bio page here.
Feb. 8, 2012
Hi Sun Devil Fans!
The Sun Devil swimmer and divers have just wrapped up an amazing couple of weeks of competition. The Lady Devils swimmers swam incredibly fast and our solo diver, Elina Eggers, dove her way to the top of the podium in her last ever PAC 12 championship meet. In the midst of the Lady Devils crazy fast swimming, seven swimming records were demolished. Shannon Landgrebe broke her own 200 freestyle record in her lead off of the 800 freestyle relay, which lead to a 6 second drop in the relay with the help of Cassie Morrice, Tristin Baxter and Mattie Kukors. Mattie kukors broke ASU records in both the 200 and 400 Individual Medley and she hopes to improve upon those records when she competes at NCAA's. Senior Kelli Kyle broke the 100 backstroke record and sophomore, Tristin Baxter crushed her own records in both the 1000 and 1650 freestyle. The Lady Devils qualified seven swimmers for the NCAA division 1 championships. Senior diver, Elina Eggers, will compete at zones this week with the expectation of qualifying for NCAA's. The women that have already qualified for NCAA's are incredibly anxious and excited to show the rest of the nation what they have in store. All of the girls who have qualified for NCAA's have been to the meet before and they feel extremely confidence going into this season's final competition. Go Devils!
Penelope 
The Lady Devil swimmers and divers and male divers are here in Federal Way, Washington getting situated for this exciting week of competition at the 2012 PAC -12 Championships. We have had so much anticipation leading up to this meet and we are incredibly excited to compete in the most prestigious conference in college swimming and diving.
Today will consist of only swimming relays which include the 200 Individual Medley Relay and the 800 Freestyle Relay. The Lady Devils have an excellent chance of breaking team records and qualifying for the 2012 NCAA championships. The 200 Medley Relay consists of Kelli Kyle (Backstroke), Rebecca Ejdervik (Breakstroke), Caroline Kuczynski (Butterfly) and Shannone Landgrebe (Freestyle). The 800 Free Relay will consist of Shannon Landgrebe, Tristin Baxter, Cassie Morrice and Mattie Kukors. The rest of the Sun Devils are extremely excited to cheer these ladies on tonight! The individual swimming events and diving events will begin tomorrow. Go Devils!
Penelope
In the midst of enjoying the beautiful spring Arizona weather, the ASU swim and dive team is getting amped up for this weekend's upcoming dual meet against the University of Arizona. Coaches Dorsey Tierney-Walker, Demerae Christianson, Brian Pursley, Scott Goodrich and Mark Bradshaw have created such a competitive and hard working environment for the Sun Devil swim and dive family. The Sun Devil swimmers and divers have been anticipating these last few meets of the season for quite some time and expect to accomplish some pretty amazing goals. We have been extremely focused on perfecting the details as we begin to taper and rest our bodies for our upcoming meets. We are incredibly excited to put of a fight against a team of such high caliber. The Sun Devils are so fortunate to be able to compete against a team that we will soon be facing in the first ever Pac-12 Championships.
The upcoming dual meet vs. Arizona is our last home meet, our gold game and we will be honoring our seniors for their contributions to the team. There are five senior women who include myself, Elina Eggers, Rebecca Ejdervik, Jordyn Green and Kelli Kyle. We will also be honoring our senior men, who include Constantin Blaha, Jesper Akesson, Cameron Bradshaw and Yutaro Yamashita. These Sun Devil seniors have made an incredibly positive and tremendous contribution to the success of our team, so come join us as we honor them on February 11th @1:00 p.m. at the Mona Plummer aquatics center. Go Devils!
Penelope
Jan. 25, 2012
My name is Penelope and for the rest of the Sun Devil swim and dive season, I'll be writing a blog called, "The Final Heat." Words cannot describe how excited I am to help you paint a better picture of exactly what it means to be a member of the ASU swim and dive team. The Sun Devils are one of the few division one swim teams in the Country that have the wonderful opportunity of having the men and women practice together. The conjoined programs enable us to develop great relationships with each other in and out of the pool. I cannot wait for you to get the inside scoop on the journey of the Sun Devil this season!
The Sun Devils are in the midst of their exciting season and the past few weeks have been full fine tuning and dual meet competitions against Pac-12 schools. A typical day of an ASU swimmer or diver consists of getting up before the sun rises for morning practice, participating in class, practicing again in the beautiful Arizona sunshine and dedicating time to studying outside of the pool. In addition to encouraging each other to succeed in the pool, the ASU swim and dive team competes at the highest level of excellence in the class room as well.
The Sun Devils academic coach, Natalie Burgess, a former ASU diver, motivates our team to compete as fiercely in the classroom as we do in the pool on a day to day basis. Natalie also inspires our team to be great students by providing us with the all of resources that we may need. In addition to helping us succeed in the classroom, Natalie also travels with our team to our Pac-12 competitions and cheers us on with a smile on her face. Natalie's tremendous efforts to help the ASU swim and dive team have resulted in excellent rankings among other Pac-12 schools.
The ASU men's and women's swim and dive team is the only Pac-12 swim and dive team to have both men and women at 100% GSR. GSR is a measure of the student athlete graduation rate. This accomplishment speaks volumes for Natalie's positive contributions towards our team and we are blessed to have her in our program.
Go Devils!
Penelope
