The Alaska Nanooks women’s swimming team started their participation at the Northwest Collegiate Invite in Boise, Idaho, on Friday. The meet is scheduled to run for three days, with the Nanooks competing in five events during the opening day.
In the 200-yard freestyle relay, the team of McKenzie Fazio, Ali Pecore, Talia Wentz and Janci Pangburn finished sixth with a finals time of 1:36.25. Two Nanooks swimmers advanced to the finals in the 500-yard freestyle: Ali Pecore secured a spot in the B Final and finished 16th overall with a time of 5:17.85, while Kitti Marton led her heat in the C Final and placed 17th with a time of 5:10.49.
Cosima Schmiedel and Giorgia Merlo both reached the C Final for the 200-yard individual medley (IM), finishing 19th (2:11.26) and 23rd (2:13.97), respectively. In that same event’s A Final, Dorka Dancsok achieved second place with a personal best time of 2:04.02, meeting an NCAA B Cut standard. This performance surpassed her previous best of 2:04.12 set in 2023 and now stands as the second-fastest mark in program history for this event.
Janci Pangburn competed in the B Final of the 50-yard freestyle and finished in 15th place with a time of 24.14 seconds. Teammates Fazio, Wentz and Pecore swam in the C Final; Fazio took 19th (24.22), Wentz was just behind at 20th (24.28), and Pecore placed 24th (24.72).
The last event for Alaska on day one was the 400-yard medley relay where Dancsok, Schmiedel, Merlo and Pangburn combined for a time of 3:57.41 to finish twelfth.
The Nanooks will continue competition on Saturday morning at day two of the Northwest Collegiate Invite.
