Toppling a Division I opponent certainly didn’t constitute a bad start to the season for the Washington University women’s swim team, which defeated Saint Louis University Friday at the Millstone Pool. The 129.5-104.5 victory was the first for the Wash. U. women against SLU in 23 years.

“I know the rest of us are really happy for the senior girls because that’s the first time in their swimming careers at Wash. U. that that has ever happened,” sophomore Kristalyn McAfee, who starred with victories in all three of her events, said.

Meanwhile, the men’s team came up short in its season debut, 132-95, although junior Luke Dobben and freshman Michael Lagieski both won events.

“I had spoken to [SLU’s] coach before the meet, and he said, ‘This is probably the best team I’ve had,’ and so we knew going into it that it was going to be a very strong men’s team,” Bears’ head coach Brad Shively said.

Dobben claimed his victory in the 500-yard freestyle, and freshman Paul Huang came in second. Lagieski won the 100 breaststroke with the only time under one minute.

“This meet isn’t about winning and losing so much for us,” Dobben said. “We were very happy for the women’s team to see them get the ‘W,’ but for us, we were just happy to have some good competition and a good atmosphere for competition.”

McAfee claimed wins for the women’s team in the 100 freestyle, the 200 freestyle and the 200 freestyle relay. Four Bears finished in the top five of the 200 freestyle. Sophomore Grace Counts placed second behind McAfee while sophomore Toireasa Rafferty-Millett and freshman Erin Polries finished fourth and fifth, respectively. McAfee teamed with senior Allison Siegel and freshman MariMac Collins and Claire Savage for the relay victory.

The Bears’ also swam to the top three spots in the women’s 100 backstroke behind a winning race from sophomore Hannah Lillioja. Sophomore Katie Anderson checked in at second, and senior Chi Pham placed third.

Savage and junior Sara Taege also won individual races in the 50 freestyle and 500 freestyle, respectively.

“The 1-2-3 finish in the 100 backstroke was really great,” McAfee said. “I thought that we had a lot of great 500 freestyle swims, and the 1000 was good. Overall, it was just a collective effort of great swimming.”

In the 1000 freestyle race to which McAfee was referring, senior Grace Murray raced to second, and freshman Kate Beuter came in third.

On the men’s side, Dobben expressed pride in the performances of freshmen swimmers like Huang and Lagieski.

“Several freshmen—I wasn’t quite expecting them to get out and race the way they did, and I’m really looking forward to continuing to train with them and race with them,” Dobben said.

Shively mostly considered the meet a tune-up before the team gets to work on starts, turns and other fundamentals. The team had only been practicing for a week and a half.

“They were just going out there and using their natural instincts and their natural racing abilities, and whatever they had, they had—and that was great,” he said. “I thought there were a little of things that after the meet you could look at on film and some things that we noticed clearly during the meet that we’ll…address during the course of the year.”