CALGARY – The University of Calgary Dinos swim teams opened their 2023-24 campaign at home this weekend where they took on the UBC Thunderbirds and Lethbridge Pronghorns at the UCalgary Aquatic Centre. 

The Thunderbird women narrowly edged the home team by half a point over two evenings of racing, taking the top spot with 153.5 points over Calgary (153) and Lethbridge (41.5).

On the men's side the UBC squad racked up 147.5 points to secure their win over the Dinos (122) and Pronghorns (84.5). 

Out of the eight event wins for the Dinos women over the two days of competition, rookie Alexanne Lepage picked up four individually and assisted the women's 400 medley relay team of Hannah Bennett, Emily De Jager and Claire Bennett, where she anchored with an impressive 55.96 spilt to claw back and beat out the team from UBC.  

Coming off her double gold-medal performance at the World Juniors earlier in September, Lepage dominated in the breaststroke events, winning the women's 200 in 2:26.24 – over four seconds ahead of UBC's Amaris Peng (2:30.37) and touched for first in the 100 with a time of 1:07.95.   

In addition to her signature events, Lepage showed her versatility by picking up wins in the 200 and 400 individual medley races, as well. 

Second-year Emily De Jager won the women's 400 freestyle for the Dinos. Her time of 4:20.16 was nearly two seconds faster than what she swam at the same meet last year where she clocked 4:22.00 before dropping new best times later in the season.

The women's 200 freestyle relay of H. Bennett, Sarah Corson, De Jager and Julianne Moore edged the Lethbridge squad by 0.05 to win the event and the Dinos 200 medley relay featuring Hannah Johnsen, Isabella Duncan, Corson and Moore topped the field in 1:54.73. 

The men's team had four individual event winners at home this weekend. 

Backstroke specialist Richie Stokes secured wins in the men's 100 (55.34) and 200 (2:02.45) backstroke events. At this meet last year, Stokes swam 56.37 in the 100 and went on to swim a new lifetime best of 54.20 at the U SPORTS Swimming Championships. 

Nathan Versluys nearly equaled his Canada West gold-medal winning time of 3:53.18 when he touched to win the 400 freestyle in 3:54.57 as the only man under the four-minute mark over the weekend. Versluys doubled down to win the 200 freestyle in 1:51.31. 

Other event winners for the Dinos men include rookie Jett Verjee, who was the only man under 2:20 in the 200 breaststroke, clocking 2:19.93, U SPORTS silver medalist Charlie Skalenda who won the men's 400 individual medley with a time of 4:27.88 and the men's 400 medley relay team of Stokes, Verjee, Thomas McDonald and Gibson Black. 

Up next, the Dinos swim teams will travel to Vancouver for the Odlum Brown Colleges Cup Nov. 4-5, hosted by the UBC Thunderbirds before playing host to the 2023 Canada West Swimming Championships Nov. 24-26.

-UC-