Swimming teams struggle at Drury Invitational

The Washington University men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams attended the 2011 Drury Invitational in Springfield, Mo., this weekend. Though the Bears had some strong individual races, the teams couldn’t catch up to either Drury University or the University of the Incarnate Word.

The men’s team placed fourth out of four teams with 505.5 points while the women’s placed third out of three teams with 714 points.

In the women’s 200-yard freestyle relay, freshman Jennifer Tartavull, sophomore Chi Pham, sophomore Allison Siegel and freshman Katie Crist led the Bears to a third-place finish with a time of 1:40.62, only 2.31 seconds off of the leaders’ pace.

Freshman Sara Taege swam well in the 200-yard butterfly, taking third place with a time of 2:14.43. In addition, the women’s team had six other fourth-place finishes.

On the men’s side, the highlight of the meet was freshman Zane Turpin’s 1,000-yard freestyle. He finished in second place with a time of 9:44.84.

“I thought it was very impressive,” freshman Luke Dobben said, of Turpin’s performance. “I was at the other end counting for him, and he was looking very good. That was much faster than what I went. I think it was something that kept the team’s spirits up.”

Besides Turpin’s impressive race, senior Mike Rao took third place in the three-meter diving competition, scoring a total of 437.30 points.

As a team, the Bears have not won many meets this season, but Dobben believes that the team can turn things around.

“We’ve been working very hard in practice,” Dobben said. “We still swam OK in general, but we know we can perform better. We just need to keep working hard.”

The Bears will try to shoot for a better performance when they travel to Wheaton, Ill., for the Wheaton Invitational on Dec. 2.