Coach Gromova reflects after women's swimming slips behind Simon Fraiser

Giorgia Merlo gets ready for a dive while Mckenzie Fazio, middle, and 11th-place national champion Dorka Dancsok, right, look on.

Story and photo by Jonathan Wasilewski

On Halloween, the University of Alaska Fairbanks women’s swim team had their third meet of the season, this time against Simon Fraser University. They competed against Simon Fraser again on Saturday, but lost both days, despite a great effort. The score on Halloween was 108 to 59, and the next day was 100 to 48.

The meet began on Friday with a 400-yard medley relay with Dorka Dancsok, Cosima Schmidel, Giorgia Merlo, and McKenzie Fazio. They won with a time of 3:54.58, beating the Simon Fraser University relay team by three seconds.

The next event was a 400-yard individual medley, where Dansosk came out first with a time of 4:28.39. That event ranked her eleventh in the nation for the 400-yard individual medley. 

Graduate student Fazio finished second in the 200-yard freestyle with a time of 1:54.15, only a second off of first place. Schmiedel received the team’s second individual win of the event in the 200-yard butterfly; her time was 2:10.32. 

After that, Ali Pecore received second place in the 50-yard freestyle with a time of 24.64.

It was then time for the evening’s final event: the 400-style freestyle relay. The aforementioned group, Dancsok, Schmidel, Merlo and Fazio, finished a half second behind the first place relay team with a time of 3:34.81. 

The next day, Fazio, Dorka, Giorgia and Pecore began by winning the 200-yard medley relay with a time of 1:47.37. Fazio set a new personal best of 27.66 seconds for the 50-yard backstroke,when she led the relay. 

Next, Kitti Martin received a time of 5:18.28 in the 500-yard freestyle. 

Then, Dancsok won the 200-yard individual medley with a time of 2:07.73.

MacKenzie O'Keefe took third place for the 100-yard butterfly with a time of 1:02.66. Macy Ahrens also received third place for the 200-yard breaststroke. Ahren’s time was 2:28.67.

Fazio then got another personal best: 2:09.29 in the 200-yard backstroke, and Pecore got a time of 53.96, a team-best, in the 100-yard freestyle. 

The last event was a 800-yard freestyle relay with Fazio, Schmiedel, Merlo and Dancsok. They received the second place time of 7:55.41.

Coaches Corner

“It’s a very diverse team,” said UAF swim head coach Ksenia Gromova. 

The team has swimmers from other countries, the lower-48, and Fairbanks. Impressively, team co-captain Dorka Dancsok, broke the 400 individual medley pool record this Halloween. 

Dancsok, a current UAF junior, is now ranked eleventh in the nation in the 400 individual medley.

The team’s other co-captain is Kaidence Sampsel, a senior from Hawaii.

 Gromova says that the team is doing well. “They’re all different and they’re all trying to find that middle ground that unites them, which is basically swimming,” she said. She noted that they are supportive, helpful, and patient with each other, especially when it comes to the language barriers and shyness.

“I was an international student when I came to the States, and it took me a while to actually feel comfortable and start talking and start opening up. I think they’re doing better than I ever did,” she said. 

 Gromova also spoke about the team’s meets and their workload. 

“This is more than we’ve done in the past three months,” said Gromova. “We usually would have two [meets] by now. We are anticipating to go to mid-season as our next meet, which is going to be before Thanksgiving.” 

The season ends in March of next year, and they hope to have national qualifiers. 

“We're still in the beginning. We still have so much left to go,” Gromova said. 

Even though they are exhausted at the end of their practices and train 20 hours a week, the team has also been able to have fun. 

“Outside of practice, we try to do a lot of activities. Some are initiated by the coaches and some are initiated by the team captains. The team can mingle and talk to each other. They’ve gone to hot springs, gone on a bonfire camping trip, and did golfing,” Gromova said. 

Also, the team leads paid swimming lessons for kids, which benefits them and Fairbanks as a community.

Still, Gromova says that the team is limited in the aspect of their facilities. If they could obtain a 50-meter pool, they could recruit better. 

“A lot of questions that I have from my recruits is if we have a 50-meter pool. They want to compete at different levels: USA Open, Nationals, and Olympic Trials, and all of those things are actually held in 50-meter pools,” Gromova explained.

Still, the team swims on. According to assistant coach Logan Indest, the word that describes the team is “resilient.” Gromova agreed.