The Sun Devil swim team held an intrasquad meet at Mona Plummer Aquatic Complex on Friday to kick off its season under new head coach.
The meet helped coaches gauge readiness of their athletes and was the first taste of competition for the swimmers before they head into their Pac-12 meets.
There's excitement surrounding Bowman and his impressive resume as personal coach of the most decorated Olympian in the world, Michael Phelps.
The men and women's swim teams were divided up into maroon and gold squads.
A story line emerged as the Gold team redshirt senior Thibaut Capitaine finished with a 55.23 second 100-yard breaststroke qualifying him to make the "B-Cut", an NCAA-designated Team USA swimming benchmark.
Associate head coach Ryan Mallam discussed Capitaine's work ethic coming into this season.
"He's been training off the charts and he's finishing and turning really well on his swims," Mallam said. "He's getting better and better as the fall continues."
On the women's side, junior Alysha Bush looked very solid with victories in the women's 50-yard freestyle, 100-yard freestyle, and a win in the 200-yard medley relay along with her other maroon teammates.
Bush is positioned to boost her freestyle times as she was just a tenth of a second off of surpassing her personal 50-yard freestyle record of 23.35.
The intrasquad meet is a great way to see where the team is and note some points to improve on as the season begins. It is meant to get the swimmers back into that competitive race mentality after a long off season in which they trained so hard to get to top physical condition. Senior Assistant Coach and former gold-medalist Misty Hyman discussed some of the finer points she saw in the meet.
"There are certain things to improve and that's what this meet was all about, Hyman said. "Things like our starts and our turns and finishes, which are some of the things that make or break a race, are points we can work on for the season. Everybody's been working really hard, our team energy and focus is really great for this coming season."
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