The men’s and women’s swimming and diving squads began their season on Saturday with a dual meet against Division I opponent Saint Louis University. The men finished one race shy of first place in all events for the day, while the women’s team took second.

“Overall we did pretty well: The guys only lost one event, the 100 backstroke…I guess we’re all very glad with our swims for the most part,” senior captain Dan Arteaga said. “We swim against [SLU] every year; they’re great competitors.”

Three male swimmers were double event winners during the Bears’ 142-95 defeat of the Billikens. Senior Alex Beyer claimed the 200 individual medley and 500 freestyle, junior David Chao won the 100 and 200 freestyles, and Arteaga took the 50 freestyle and 100 butterfly.

“I was pretty happy with all my swims. Especially since I didn’t swim as much as I should have [over] the summer,” Arteaga said. “I felt good in the water…We’re also kind of starting to build up and really start training hard this month: start lifting a lot more, getting more yardage, just training harder.”

The team claimed both first and second places in the 200 IM and 100 butterfly, with junior Michael Flanagan placing behind Beyer and Arteaga. With a first-place time of 1:26.46 in the 200 freestyle relay, freshman Brendan Morin, Arteaga, Beyer and Chao finished the meet’s dominant performance.

“Getting up there and going fast [is a challenge], but once you get over that, it’s all easy I guess,” Arteaga said.

Senior captain Jessie Lodewyk was the only individual event winner for the women’s squad as SLU finished ahead of the Bears 164-70. Lodewyk finished first in the 1,000 and 500 freestyles with times of 11:00.94 and 5:24.66, respectively. The team had several second-place finishes, including two by freshmen.

“[The meet] was really exciting. It’s always nice to see new talent, everyone together as a team for the first time,” Lodewyk said. “It’s really neat because each team has a different dynamic. I was really excited, really pumped up; it was a really good first meet.”

Lodewyk noted that the meet occurred close to the team’s official start of practice, and the Bears will continue to intensify training for future meets.

“Just working and getting into better physical condition, just really working on our aerobic base,” Lodewyk said. “And then definitely you always want your team closer, more motivated, just really psyching up and getting prepared for our big meets this season—keeping in mind the long-range goals. That’s our big focus.”

The Bears’ next meet is the Show-Me Showdown on Oct. 10-11 at the University of Missouri-Columbia.

1 Comments

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  On October 5, 2009 at 7:46 pm Dima Galkin said

  I don’t mean to be egotistical but I won the 100 breaststroke with a 1:00.71 and I don’t even get mentioned? That was part of the men’s “dominant performance.”

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Tags: dan arteaga, David Chao, diving, Jessie Lodewyk, Saint Louis University, swimming

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