The Collegian

Issue date: 11/20/08 Section: Sports

Media Credit: William Clayton

The Charger's spent their second home meet in a row towering over Ohio Northern University and Olivet College and boosting the swim team's season to 7-1.

Head coach Kurt Kirner felt the other teams provided a good challenge for Hillsdale's swimmers, but in the end the Chargers displayed more depth.

"We definitely focused on swimming our race, not thinking about anyone else in the water and finishing hard," freshman Katie Lamb said.

Hillsdale stroked their way to the top spots in both relays and several individual events. Freshman Nikki Dyer took first in the 1000-yard freestyle, sophomore Alicia Leduc won the 100 backstroke, junior Meredith Scott claimed first in the 100 breaststroke, and freshman Linda Okonkowski led eventful sweeps in the 100 butterfly and the 400 IM.

Kirner was especially proud of senior Charlotte Wolfe's wins in both one and three meter diving events, considering she dove at a higher difficulty. Wolfe received "lifetime best" scores (234.9 points in 1-meter and 218.2 in 3-m) and felt she did her best and was rewarded accordingly. She scored about 25 and 40 points higher than last week on one and three meter respectively. She said she will continue trying out new dives, increasing levels of difficulty and giving the team that extra boost in points.

Kirner said the team spent the past weeks talking about putting together a race strategy and keeping perspective.

"I want meets to be less about an event and more like a quality practice," he said.

In real practice, Lamb feels everything they do has purpose and contributes to the team's stellar performance this season.

The team heads to Northern Michigan University this Saturday - an 11 hour road-trip - in the hopes of bettering to 8-1.

"Anytime we can go against a similar opponent, we want to go out and perform our best,"

Kirner said.

Wolfe said Northern Michigan provides tough competition, but she hopes to boost scores and difficulty while keeping her head in the meet. Kirner views this meet as a good lead to the Carthage Invitational the first week of December, since the team will swim more than usual.

The upcoming meet is in the16-event format, so Hillsdale's swimmers will swim extra events adding up to four. Kirner hopes to build endurance, especially for the conference championship, which adds up to about 14 swims across a four-day period.

"It's about swimming fast under traveling conditions and more swims," he said.

"They'll get a chance to focus on events they'll swim at the end of the season."

Page 1 of 1

Article Tools