North Texas News

After debuting last year in historical fashion, and quite literally making a splash, the Texas Woman's artistic swim team jumps into their second season of competition this weekend at home.

In their first year of competition in 2022, the Pioneers dove onto the collegiate scene successfully. At the U.S. Collegiate National Championships, TWU placed fourth overall, just behind Ohio State, Stanford, and the University of the Incarnate Word.

After a phenomenal season, TWU returned all seven of their inaugural team – Mikayla Crichton, Maribella Falconer, Anaya Kashikar, Laura Klein Paredes, Ashley Latchford, Haiden Long and Regina Ramirez –and added four new freshmen this year. The four freshmen all come to TWU from international homes, as Eva Fernández-Montenegro Serrano, Candela Fidalgo Garcia and Ada Monteys Vinardell are from Spain and Kimberly Poitras is from Canada.

TWU Head Coach Sara Lilly said the welcoming of the four freshmen from international backgrounds helped further deepen the unique family atmosphere of the team.

"It's so exciting to have them as a part of our team," Lilly said. "We are learning Spanish, and we love hearing about their culture. We have learned so much about the different areas of Spain our athletes are from and the different dialects they speak. Kimberly has introduced new foods to the team. It is so awesome we have so many different cultures and backgrounds on our team, which makes us unique."

This season, the Pioneers will be competing two trios, two duets, a solo and a team routine. Although they are continuing to elevate their routines and improve them throughout the season, Lilly said, as she shared the themes of the routines, they are sure to excite fans with their upbeat nature.

"This year, our team theme is dragons, so you will see a lot of dragon wings," Lilly said. "One of our trios is very voodoo jazz, with the New Orleans feel – its upbeat and never really stops building. The other trio will be swimming to Welcome to the Jungle, which fans will immediately recognize. We have one duet whose theme is Illusions, and the other will be swimming a routine with a Spanish flair to Carmen, while Ashley, our soloist, will revamp her routine from last year."

The Pioneers will open their 2023 season against Wheaton College on Saturday, Jan. 28 at 2:30 p.m. in the Pioneer Hall Pool. Admission will be free and the event will be live-streamed.

Lilly said she could not be more excited to have the team dive into competition.

"We have a lot of talent this year," Lilly said. "We have gotten a lot stronger, as we have worked a lot closer with the strength coach this season, which has made us so much stronger in the water. It's so exciting to go into the first several competitions because you just don't know where you will really stand. Since we are continuing to build our young team, we are excited to see how we stack up among the competition."

With a meet at Ohio State slated for the second competition of the season, the Pioneers will be able to gauge where they sit early on. Lilly said she has full confidence in the strength of this team, and their ability to continue to improve throughout the season. They have set their sights on finishing even higher at Collegiate Nationals this March.

"With eight athletes instead of seven this year and all eight have trained with us from the beginning, we can do so much more," Lilly said. "Our team routine is more complicated and intricate. Our goal is to break between the three teams we were behind last year in all categories."

The meet against Wheaton marks the only regular season meet for the Pioneers at home. TWU will host the MPSF Conference Championships this first weekend of March offsite in Lewisville, Texas, before closing their season on the road in Illinois for U.S. Collegiate Nationals. 

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