Sports Reporter
mfreter@mavs.coloradomesa.edu
The men’s and women’s swimming teams, after a 10-hour bus trip, met with some success in two different invitationals.
They traveled to Colorado Springs on Friday to compete in the Air Force Academy Invitational and then headed back home to Grand Junction on Saturday to take on RMAC opponents Adams State and Western State in a duel meet. According to diver Brock Martin, the consecutive days of competing and traveling was tough, but both teams overcame it without much struggle.
“[Traveling] didn’t affect us on Friday, but it did on Saturday when we were back in Grand Junction,” Martin said. “We got back around three in the morning, so we were all pretty tired before the second meet, but we still did very well.”
Sophomore diver Amanda Jennings agreed with Martin and stated that the team had more to give during Friday’s meet.
“I was not as tired in the first meet, which helped because there was a lot more competition,” Jennings said. “The second meet was a little tougher because I was exhausted from the travel.”
The men’s team took first place in two events at the Air Force Invitational and won the duel meet by placing first in eight of 12 events. The women’s team had several top five finishes at the Air Force Invitational and outscored Western State in the duel meet, but could not match the point total of Adams State.
The two first place finishes for the men’s team at the Air Force Academy came from Brett Lowe in the 100-yard Breaststroke with a final time of 1:01:59 and Martin in the Three-meter Dive with a score of 305.70. The Mavericks also picked up points with top finishes from Peter Szekely, Josh Scheuermann, Jason Dahlen and Tyler Kaslik.
Szekely and Scheuermann took second and third in the 100-yard Freestyle with times of 49.88 and 50.27 seconds, while Dahlen finished second in the 50-yard Freestyle with a time of 22.2 seconds. Kaslik took third in the 1000-yard Freestyle finishing in 10:24.46.
In the home meet, the Mavericks dominated the visiting Grizzlies and Mountaineers. The 400-yard Medley Relay team of Scheuermann, Lowe, Drake Mendelson and Rob Eisendrath started off the meet with a victory time of 3:41:33 and set the tone for the rest of the squad. Cole Kimble finished first in the 1650-yard Freestyle with 18:00.03, and his teammate Jeremy Pacheco finished just one second behind him in second.
The Mavs also picked up first place finishes in the 50-yard Freestyle (Eisendrath, 22.42), 200-yard Freestyle (Kaslik, 1:47.53), 400-yard Individual Medley (Ryan Drake, 4:37.98) and One-meter Dive (Martin, 250.35).
For the women’s team, RMAC diver of the week Amanda Jennings placed fourth in the One-meter Dive with a score of 205.35 and fifth in the Three-meter Dive with a 210.10 score. Kelly Hogan placed third in the 1000-yard Freestyle with a time of 11:23.02, Maddy Wigg took fifth in the 500-yard Freestyle with a 5:57.72 time and the 200-yard Freestyle Relay team of Wigg, Samantha Parker, Annie Jones and Madi Hopkins took fourth with a time of 1:50:52.
Back in Grand Junction, the Mavs took three first-place finishes against their RMAC foes. Amy Brodie took first in two events, taking the 100-yard Backstroke in 1:02:29 and the 400-yard Freestyle Relay in 3:42.80 along with Hogan, Jones and Briana Purkapile. Jennings also took first in the Three-meter Dive with a score of 208.50.
Martin was happy with the performance of both teams against conference competition.
“It was a great weekend for us,” Martin said. “We had some really good swims and dives as a team.”
The Mavericks will return to the pool this Saturday on the road in a duel meet against Colorado School of Mines.
Recent Comments