Competing for the first time since Oct. 9, when both teams lost to St. Louis University, the men’s and women’s squads took first at the meet, edging out Washington & Lee University, Centre College, and DePauw University.

“It was hard, in the first couple of meets, to do anything significant to help us to go fast. It was just not enough time, and I felt like we had the opportunity [to train], and we did,” head coach Brad Shively said. “We went to work and had a few weeks of really solid training behind us.”

The women’s team scored 720 points, 86 points higher than second-place finisher DePauw. Freshmen Grace Murray, Chi Pham and Paige VanTassell each took first in pairs of individual events.

“It’s the whole idea of coming to college, coming and stepping it up,” Pham said. “Me, Grace and Paige are pretty good training partners. Both Grace and Paige are really good distance swimmers, and so they pace off each other a lot.”

Pham and VanTassell also competed in the final event of the meet—the 400-yard freestyle relay—with fellow freshman Allison Siegel and junior Amy Vanlishout. The Bears took the top two spots in the race; the “A” relay finished in 3:41.74, ahead of the Bears’ “B” squad, who finished in 3:44.60.

“[The freshmen] certainly are a talented group of young women, and I think that what we’ve seen so far is that they’re also pretty tough, that they’ve been very competitive in races. They’ve really gone after things. I think it’s been a nice spark,” Shively said. “I think a lot of it is the leadership from the upperclassmen, too. You can have a lot of talent, but if you don’t have a great deal of direction, it isn’t going to go where you want to go.”

Senior Karin Underwood, co-captain of the women’s team, placed first in the 200-yard backstroke with a time of 2:12.96 and, with freshman Connie Shao, junior Karina Stridh and senior Claire Henderson, won the 200-medley relay in 1:52.94.

The men’s team, in a much closer contest, finished with 734 points, ahead of Washington & Lee (716), DePauw (697) and Centre (374).

“I thought we had a lot of emotion, a lot of enthusiasm, and once, particularly on the guy’s side, they knew it was close, they really rallied and came through with some really strong swims at the end of the meet,” Shively said.

Seniors David Chao and Michael Flanagan, co-captains of the men’s team, also garnered first-place finishes in two individual races each.

Chao won both the 200-yard freestyle (1:44.98) and the 100-yard freestyle (47.62) while Flanagan took first in the 100-yard butterfly (52.77) and the 200-yard butterfly (1:56.84).

“I was definitely happy with all my results because they were definitely my fastest times this season, and I definitely think that three weeks of training from our last meet was a factor in time, for me, but I also think that the level of competition…was more intense,” Chao said.

Freshman Alex Cox took first in the 1,000-yard freestyle (10:08.56); junior Chris Valach won the 500-yard freestyle (4:52.95), and freshman Tyler Perez won the 200-yard IM (2:01.50).

Chao also swam the final leg of the men’s 400-yard freestyle relay, anchoring the team in a heated race. The team of Chao, freshman Jason Wan, sophomore Mark Minowitz and senior Kartik Anjur took first (3:10.91), securing the Bears’ overall victory in the meet.

“It was us and DePauw battling for first, and each leg there was a lead change,” Chao said. “When I dove in for the anchor leg, we were a little behind, but for me, in the past three years, a lot of my best races have been coming from behind just because I get an extra adrenaline rush from having the team on my shoulders and being able to come up with an ‘underdog’ victory.”

The team will return to Wash. U.’s Millstone Pool on Saturday, Nov. 6 to host a dual meet with conference rival University of Chicago. The meet begins at 1 p.m.

“It’s actually our only UAA dual meet of the season, so we want to definitely come out on top for this one. It’s going to be a really close meet, so we’re looking forward to the challenge ahead of us,” Chao said.

The Bears captured first place in 16 events, with the men taking 10 and the women winning six. The Red and Green raced in many of its nontraditional events, with distance swimmers competing in sprints and short distance swimmers in long-distance events.

Several captains viewed the change in pace as a morale booster.

“All of us were swimming our off events to have fun and do something different,” senior co-captain Dan Arteaga said.

One of the closest races pitted two Wash. U. 200-yard medley relay squads against each other. The B squad, consisting of junior Kartik Anjur, seniors Arteaga and Alex Beyer and sophomore Ben Halperin, edged out the A squad of sophomores Billy Griffitts and Nick Thornburg, junior David Chao and senior Brian Kushner by 0.03 seconds. Down by more than a second in the final leg, Kushner almost came back to secure the win over his teammates.

Other first-place finishes included Kushner in the 100 freestyle, Arteaga in the 200 freestyle, senior Dima Galkin in the 200-yard individual medley, Chao in the 100 butterfly, Anjur in the 200 free, and freshman Brendan Morin in the 1,000 freestyle. Sophomore John Rao took the top spot in the 1-meter diving competition, besting three Panthers with 215.45 points.

Freshman Sarah Paleg won the women’s 1-meter diving competition.

“It’s amazing having [divers] both from the points stand point and the team stand point,” senior co-captain Jessie Lodewyk said.

Last season, Wash. U. did not field divers.

The entire team recently returned from their annual training trip in Florida.

“It’s almost like a whole new season,” Lodewyk said. “This year more than any other, we’ve seen underclassmen step up.”

Other top finishes for the women’s team included Lodewyk in the 200 IM; freshmen Grace Preston and Veronica Tse in the 200 freestyle and 1,000 freestyle, respectively; and junior Karin Underwood in the 100 butterfly. Wash. U.’s 200 medley and 200 free relay squads also picked up victories.

Several Wash. U. swimmers pointed to sophomore Michael Flanagan’s 100-butterfly as a standout performance from the meet. Flanagan turned in the top time of 1:03.44.

One of the events with the biggest buildup was the 400 freestyle relay. The Bears C squad defeated Principia’s squad last weekend at the Wash. U. Invitational by about a half second. As a result, the Panthers challenged the Bears to a rematch, according to junior Justin Chen.

Joining Chen’s squad were sophomores JD Scott and Evan Dorshorst and senior John Vanlishout.

“We really didn’t want to lose to Principia,” Chen said. “We [even] had a special cheer.”

The Bears outdid the Panthers by 0.95 seconds, turning in a time of 3:19.75. It was also the first time Chen broke 50 seconds in a leg, with a 49.7 split time. “It was just palpable how exciting it was,” sophomore Karina Stridh said. “Everyone had their hearts beating out of their chests.”

Friday’s meet was the squad’s final competition before the University Athletic Association championships. According to Kushner, this is the hardest the team has trained in his four years at Wash. U. Kushner attributes this effort to the team capitalizing on last year’s success at nationals, in which the men’s team had its second best performance in program history with a seventh-place finish.

The UAA championships will be hosted by Emory University from Feb. 17-20 in Atlanta. Emory’s men’s team is ranked fourth in the nation, while the Lady Eagles are top ranked. Several UAA schools, including Carnegie Mellon University, University of Chicago and New York University, also boast nationally ranked programs.

In the lead up to conference play, the team focuses on team bonding, according to Stridh. The women’s team traditionally makes funny necklaces for each other and plans on making a banner for conference play. Each swimmer is responsible for a tile that will ultimately spell out Go Bears. “We goof around, and it’s so much fun, but at the same time we get really intense too, especially before swim meets,” Stridh said. “You know you have your team there, and you know that  you can always rely on your team because they’re going to do the best they can.”

This event was the Bears’ last competition of the fall season and is considered their most important meet behind the University Athletic Association and NCAA championships. In preparation for the invitational, the team “tapered,” reducing the amount of yardage in workouts at practice each day leading up to the meet.

“We decrease our yardage and kind of rest for the meet,” senior captain Jessie Lodewyk said. “It’s really a mental thing. Mentally and physically you just start to get really hyped up about the swim meet. When you get there it’s all mental, really preparing and racing hard. We definitely attacked our races and really stepped up our performance.”

Senior captain Alex Beyer’s first place finish in the 500 freestyle of 4:27.07 and a time of 3:58.43 in the preliminary race for the 400 individual medley earned him two NCAA automatic qualifying times.

“Overall it was a pretty decent meet; times were decent,” Beyer said. “We’re still not at where we want to be at the end of the season, so we have a lot of work left to do.”

The team capped off the meet with a first-place finish in the 400 freestyle relay that earned an NCAA provisional cut, as well as a new meet and pool record. The relay squad of Beyer, senior captain Dan Arteaga, freshman Mark Minowitz and junior David Chao finished the race in 3:04.02.

Two additional relays earned NCAA provisional cuts: the 200 freestyle relay of Arteaga, Beyer, freshman Brendan Morin and Chao, and the 400 medley relay of junior Kartik Anjur, Beyer, Arteaga and Chao. Both were first-place finishes.

The women’s squad placed fourth out of six teams, but earned four NCAA provisional cuts at the meet. Lodewyk led the Bears with two cuts, placing first in the 200 freestyle and finishing runner-up in the 500 freestyle. “I was really excited about my times,” Lodewyk said. “I’ve historically had a really bad Wheaton meet, so I was really excited to go those times at mid-season. I had someone to race against the whole meet, and that’s when I swim my best.”

Junior Karin Underwood won the 200 backstroke and earned a provisional cut with her time of 2:08.10 in the preliminary race. Freshman Meg Powers also finished first with a time of 59.52 in the 100 butterfly. Sophomore Karina Stridh was runner-up in the 100 backstroke, and her preliminary time of 59.63 also qualified for a provisional cut.

“We had some really good swims,” Lodewyk said. “There were some people that stepped up in a really big way…People took it up to the next level and performed the way they needed to perform.”

The Bears return to competition on Jan. 8. Their dual meet with Lindenwood University will be hosted at the Millstone Pool and is scheduled to begin at 6 p.m.

“I thought they did a great job. What you try to do in a meet like this is try to gauge the effectiveness of your training and their intensity throughout the first semester. You hope that you put it together well enough that at least you give them the opportunity to go out and swim fast, and I thought we did,” Head Coach Brad Shively said.

Junior Alex Beyer continued his strong season by breaking three school records and automatically qualifying for nationals in the 500-yard freestyle, 800-yard freestyle relay and the 400-yard individual medley. Beyer broke his own record in the 500-free and IM, while his leading leg of the 800-free relay also broke a Wash. U. record.

Freshman Karina Stridh broke a school record and automatically qualified for the NCAAs with a time of 51.19 seconds in the 100-yard freestyle, breaking the school record by .64 seconds. Stridh also broke the school record in 50-yard freestyle and qualified for NCAAs in the 50-free and the 100-yard backstroke.

“He [Shively] was giving us a little bit of a pep talk, and he was saying, ‘Don’t be surprised by greatness.’ I guess that kind of summed up how I felt about a lot of it because I really was surprised by how well I did, but most other people, especially the upperclassmen, know that this is an important meet and get really good times,” Stridh said.

Aside from Beyer and Stridh, all other NCAA-qualifying times were provisional.

On Friday, junior Brian Kushner, freshman Chris Valach, senior Kelly Kono and junior Jessie Lodewyk all provisionally qualified in the 500-freestyle, with Kushner and Lodewyk finishing second in their respective races.

Senior Kevin Leckey and sophomore David Chao took first and second in the 100-freestyle, and junior Dima Galkin and sophomore Michael Flanagan finished second in the 100-yard breaststroke and 200-yard butterfly respectively to also provisionally qualify for nationals, on Friday.

The women saw two other swimmers provisionally qualify for nationals, as sophomores Claire Henderson and Karin Underwood took first and second respectively in the 200-yard backstroke.

The Wash. U. men provisionally qualified in nine more events on Saturday. Leckey won the 50 and 200-freestyle, Chao came in second in both events and Beyer and senior Julian Beattie finished first and second in the 200-breaststroke, respectively. Junior Dan Arteaga and Flanagan also qualified in the 50-freestyle. The last individual qualifier for the men was Valach with a win in the 1,650-yard freestyle.

Three women individually qualified on Saturday, with Kono, Lodewyk and freshman Samantha Schulte taking first, second and third in the 1,650-yard freestyle. Kono also won the 200-yard freestyle, and Henderson took second in the 100-yard backstroke.

The Wash. U. relay teams also made their pushes for nationals this weekend, with teams making the provisional cut. Both the men and women provisionally qualified in the 800-free relay and 400-medly relay. The men and women also qualified in the 400-freestyle relay.

“Their competitive fire really showed. You just can’t prepare for that,” Shively said.

“[For] people who made A cuts, it was quite impressive this year. As far as B cuts go, we always aim to get a couple of relays and individuals, so it’s very good that we did get what we did,” Leckey, a co-captain, said. Leckey explained that in order to gain more control over nationals, the NCAA decreased the automatic qualifying times this season.

While team results at Wheaton were of secondary importance to the team after qualifying individuals for nationals, the Red and Green took second on both the men and women’s sides, losing only to Div. II Grand Valley State University in the seven-team field. Shively explained that since national qualifying times are very fast, the team uses this meet and the UAA Championships as qualifying meets since they have ample time to prepare.

The team will next be in action on Jan. 9 when Wash. U. hosts Lindenwood University in the first of four meets before UAAs. In these meets, the team will look to improve on race strategy and competition level before the UAA Championships on Feb. 11-14.

“We’re going to be in really tough training for the next two months. It’s great because you can still swim fast in season, and it can be very motivating if you do swim fast, but they’re all kind of benchmark meets as you move toward conferences to make sure that you are where you want to be,” Leckey said.