Trinity vs Southwestern

Winter recess is over!

Who would think anyone would be relieved to hear that said? Truth is, our swimmers and divers are more than relieved. It means the Trinity campus community is back in full swing, and it means the team has survived the rigors associated with the season's toughest two weeks of training. All eyes are now fixed on February and March, as we prepare for the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference Championships and, in some cases, the NCAA's.

Everyone is psyched, but everyone is tired. Today we met at Hixon Natatorium at 8:00 am and tallied about 4,000 yards before catching a quick breakfast, jumping aboard a chartered bus, and trekking north to Georgetown to compete with Southwestern University.

Theirs is a notoriously "slow" pool, at least for us, and today proved to be no exception to that tradition. Bad weather slowed the bus ride a bit, and we only had about a 30 minute warm-up before the meet kicked off at 2:00 pm. Both our men and our women recorded wins in the 200 medley relay, nearly equaling our season best performances and competing the way we need to compete if we're going to be competitive a month from now. It was good to see!

Individually, sophomore Jennifer Ince was our "swimmer-of-the-day" and inspired everyone who was paying attention to our swims over the course of the afternoon. After nearly winning the 100 backstroke, Jennifer stroked to a two second lifetime best 2:12.85 in the 200 backstroke, beating Southwestern's Bailey Thompson for the first time ever and really exciting her team-mates with her win. She then came back to hit another PR late in the meet - this time with a win in the 200 IM. Pretty cool stuff given the work we've been doing!

Our women posted several other wins. FY Meghan Varner captured the 200 freestyle and the 200 butterfly - an impressive "double" with little rest and no warmdown swim between her two races. She then completed a "hat trick" individually by winning the 500 freestyle with a well paced negative split swim. Cudos go to her for some tough racing! FY Melanie Gustafson won the 100 freestyle, FY Morgan Briggs was first in both the 100 and 200 breaststroke events, and our 400 freestyle relay team of Meghan Varner, Mary Price, Rachel Berude, and Ana Price came from behind to steal a win from the Pirate's relay foursome.

Meanwhile, Hayley Emerick and her TU diving team-mates put on a terrific show on both the 1-meter and 3-meter boards. Hayley, Lynne Bettinger, and Ruth Hahn all posted NCAA entry standard scores on the low board (560.95, 529.55, and 524.10) on their way to a 1 - 2 - 3 finish. The same threesome then finished the day with a sweep on the high board, with all again surpassing the NCAA qualifying score for that event. Hayley was the winner (621.45 points), but the time Ruth outscored Lynne for the runner-up spot.

Trinity's women outscored Southwestern 180 to 98 and we felt that the team competed well. Everyone is tired, so racing is what it's all about. Our women are getting ready for a good conference meet, despite the loss of Lisa Tucci (illness) and some illness with a couple of others. A little resilience now and a good taper down the road will put smiles on a lot of faces.

Our men, meanwhile, also had a pretty good afternoon. The Tigers topped the Pirates 220 to 46, winning both relays and every individual event contested. Double winners included Aaron Shaver (50 and 100 freestyles), Lucas Belury (200 butterfly and 200 breaststroke), Zach Dielmann (100 backstroke and 100 butterfly), Sean Fronczak (100 breaststroke and 200 backstroke), and Kevin Martin (1-meter and 3-meter diving). Individual event winners included Andrew Battles (1000 freestyle), Mike Brew (200 freestyle), Arthur Daigh (500 freestyle), and Alex Miranda (200 IM).

All in all, our men raced well and showed "good stuff" despite being really, really fatigued. We've seen some signs of good swimming during our practices, and those who have stayed healthy and put in the yardage should be ready for the SCACs in February. We have to fine tune a bunch of bodies between now and then, and then their minds will determine how well they do in Houston (the SCAC Championships will be held at the new Conroe ISD Natatorium in Shenandoah, TX). Baseball player Ty Cobb once said "The most important part of a player's body is above his shoulders." Amen to that!

One additional point of interest for those following our team's season - our divers are improving. Coach Stan Randall is an incredible teacher, and I'm betting we score well on the boards at conference this year. Both Kevin Martin and Andrew Snead have hit the NCAA consideration standards for their discipline, and they now have four additional team-mates preparing with them for the 2011 SCAC title meet. Coach Stan is a master at getting his athletes ready to compete, and the team had a phenomenal training camp in Puerto Rico before starting classes this past Wednesday.

Two weeks from now, we'll be competing in an invitational meet at Palo Alto Community College. Look for some improvement between now and then when it comes to our performances in the pool. We won't be tapered, but we should be a little sharper and a bit faster than we were in Georgetown. In the meantime, the best advice I have for anyone wanting to excel down the line is to BE A TIGER every day between now and our championship meets.

-Coach Ryan