With a final score of 145-79, the women’s team fell to the Salukis but ended the meet with eight second-place and eight third-place finishes. The men lost 144-73 while claiming seven second-place and 10 third-place finishes.

The Bears swam back-to-back meets as the team swept Principia College in Elsah, Ill., on Friday night, with the men winning 130-27 and the women 139-38. The teams knew that the SIU meet would be a mentally and physically challenging task.

“They’re a scary Division I team,” head coach Brad Shively said. “It isn’t an everyday current to have a Division III program against a Division I. We knew it would be a hard challenge. I thought our distance swims were very strong.”

Some highlights on the men’s side included senior Chris Valach, who led the team with three second-place finishes, two individuals and one relay. In the 200-yard backstroke, Valach put together a strong race, finishing with a time of 1:58.87, only 2.93 seconds off the pace. He also earned second-place in the 1,000-yard freestyle with a time of 9:53.24, 10.26 seconds behind first-place.

Sophomore Brian Carpenter swam strongly in the 200-yard breaststroke with a time of 2:11.84, only 3.44 seconds behind first place, while junior Mark Minowitz raced well in the 100-yard freestyle, finishing in 49.09 seconds and only 0.14 seconds off the pace.

In the 400-yard freestyle, the Bears team of Valach, freshman Matt Nutter, sophomore Jack Walker and freshman Luke Dobben put together a great performance, finishing only 9.2 seconds behind SIU’s first-place team.

Freshman Zane Turpin also swam well for the Bears as he finished the meet with two second-place finishes: the 200-yard butterfly in 1:57.27 and the 500-yard freestyle in 4:51.47.

On the women’s side, sophomore Chi Pham had two second-place finishes. Pham swam the 200-yard breaststroke in 2:31.64 and the 100-yard freestyle in 55.05, only 0.99 seconds away from first.

Freshman Sara Taege also performed impressively at the meet, ending the meet with two second-place finishes. She was only 3.04 seconds away from first place in the 200-yard butterfly with a time of 2:13.37. She also competed well in the 200-yard freestyle, finishing the race in 1:58.95, 3.60 seconds off her pace.

In the 400-yard freestyle relay, Taege, sophomore Allison Siegel, freshman Katie Crist and junior Veronica Tse finished second in 3:47.10. Sophomore Meghan Lam also had a second-place finish in the 200-yard breaststroke with a time of 2:10.01 as did sophomore Paige VanTassell in the 500-yard freestyle in 5:24.20.

Coach Shively believes that swimming against strong teams like SIU will keep his team in the perfect mindset for the University Athletic Association Championship, which takes place in Cleveland, Ohio, from Feb. 15-18.

“We’ve had a tough season swimming against really fast swimmers,” Shively said. “But since we’ve seen what’s hard, I believe our team is ready for the UAA Championship, and I’m confident our team will be excellent.”

Josh Goldman | Student Life

Freshman Kyle Billig makes contact against Illinois College on March 22. Billig stole five bases this weekend against Principia College to move within one of tying the single-season team record of 29.

Freshman Kyle Billig had five steals as the Bears ran rampant against the Panthers. The team stole a season-high 15 bases in a 14-4 mercy-rule win.

“I’ve scouted [Principia] and kind of knew what to expect and I knew we were going to be able to take advantage of that matchup with our speed,” head coach Steve Duncan said. “There aren’t many catchers that we’ve played against that can shut our running game down; we’ve played against two or three that have, but for the most part, we know we can run on anybody.”

The Bears now have a total of 106 swipes this season with 10 games remaining on the schedule, and they have eclipsed the team’s previous single-season record of 93.

“We try to play aggressive in all aspects of the game. We try to be aggressive when we’re pitching, we try to be aggressive on the bases and we try to be aggressive at the plate,” Duncan said. “It is an attitude that we have, and we’ve been able to turn that attitude into a lot of runs. [Saturday’s game] was a great example of it, because we stole more bases than we have all year in any single game.”

Sophomore Taylor Berman took the mound, pitching a seven-inning complete game while giving up four runs, two of which were earned, and nine hits. Though he got the win, pushing his season record to 4-1, Berman struggled early.

Principia jumped ahead in the first inning on a two-RBI double, and then scored again on a throwing error. The Panthers managed four hits in the first, but were held to just five through the rest of the game.

“A big part of it was getting behind hitters and having to throw them good pitches that were easy to hit,” Berman said. “I figured it out; it was a mechanics thing for me, sort of a timing thing, but I struggled because I couldn’t get ahead of guys, which is something that has been happening over the last couple [games].”

The Bears got two back in the bottom of the first. After Billig was hit by a pitch to leadoff the inning, he stole both second and third base. Junior Brandon Rogalski then walked and stole second, and both runners scored on two wild pitches in consecutive at-bats.

“We watched [Principia’s starting pitcher] warming up in the bullpen and we were able to see that he was really slow from the stretch and he kind of tipped off when he was pitching home,” Billig said.

Wash. U. stole five bases in the first, and swiped another four in a two-run third inning. Senior Matt Bayer’s double with runners on second and third plated two runs and gave the Bears the lead.

Billig, whose 28 steals is one short of Wash. U.’s single-season record, attributed the team’s success on the basepaths to Duncan’s scouting. The Red and Green stole at least one base in five of seven innings.

“Every time we got a runner with speed on first, we knew that he could easily end up on second or even third,” Billig said. “Once we had runners in scoring position, it was just a matter of finding a way to get them in.”

When Berman slipped while fielding a ground ball, his throwing error led to an unearned run in the next inning.

In the fifth, the Bears jumped ahead on senior Travis May’s RBI-double before freshman Andrew Dwoskin’s three-run homer to left center broke open the game.

“Once [Andrew] Dwoskin hit that, it just kind of lit the fire underneath us,” Billig said. “We knew that we were capable of beating this team and putting up a lot of runs, so [the homerun] just kind of motivated us, got us going, and we were able to pull out the win”

Rogalski and senior catcher Joe Noon each tripled in the sixth, and the Red and Green tacked on six runs over the next two innings to force a mercy rule victory.

Earlier in the week, on Thursday, April 14, Wash. U. got a 5-4 victory over Webster University. The starting pitcher, sophomore Stephen Bonser, went nine innings and allowed just three runs, while Rogalski provided a game-winning two-RBI double in the seventh.

Wash. U. will play a doubleheader against the Gorloks Monday afternoon.

Matt Lee

Sophomore Kenji Kobayashi runs the ball past Principia College forward Spencer Brown in their game Thursday night, scoring the first goal of the game.

The win was an encouraging victory after the Bears suffered their first loss of the season in overtime at the University of Rochester four days earlier.

“We just came off a loss and one of our goals was never to lose two games in a row this year, so we wanted to make sure we put them away early,” sophomore midfielder Kenji Kobayashi said.

It was Kobayashi who would get the early score when he netted his third goal of the season less than eleven minutes into the game. Senior John Duncan and freshman Michael Flowers were credited with the assist.

“Randy [Schoen] put a cross in and it dropped right onto Michael Flowers’s head. Flowers put it back for me,” Kobayashi, who has now scored in back-to-back games, said. “I turned around and there was no one in front of me so I just put it in the goal.”

The Bears controlled possession the majority of the game, outshooting the Panthers 15-6 and taking five corner kicks but allowing the Panthers none.

“We didn’t do anything different than we do all the time,” head coach Joe Clarke said “We tried to pass the ball and get a lot of players involved in the attack, and have our forwards very active – and keep the ball on the ground, that’s probably the main thing we try to do.”

The Red and Green would score once more before the end of the first half. Freshman Stephen Spanos scored the first goal of his Wash. U. career after junior Dylan Roman sent him a pass in front of the box, giving the Bears a 2-0 advantage.

The Bears began the second half by allowing an uncharacteristic own goal. When freshman Nik Patel attempted to clear the ball, it was intercepted by a Principia player and then deflected off the foot of a Bears’ player past freshman goalie Jonathan Jebson.

“I don’t like giving up a goal, but it was an own goal, what can we do?” Clarke said. “It was going way out of bounds, hits one of our players and goes in.”

Despite the defensive fluke, the Bears quickly took control of the game again. In the 64th minute, what appeared to be intended as a long pass from senior midfielder from Cody Costakis landed in the top corner of the net, out of reach of Panther goalkeeper Samuel Thomas.

“It was good to prove that we could come out and score a couple goals,” sophomore midfielder Brian Wright said. “One defensive meltdown, [we were] not thinking, but we showed, again, that we could come back and put the game away when it mattered.”

The Red and Green appeared to have wrapped up the game as regulation wound down – but they weren’t done scoring yet. Flowers received a pass from fellow Spanos 30 yards from the goal with just 17 seconds remaining in the game. With a hard strike, Flowers recorded his second goal of the season and hit the turf in celebration. The game’s four goals were the most since the team scored seven against Webster University in its season opener.

“We played with a lot of different guys in the offense, and different combinations, and it seemed to pay off just to change things up every once in a while,” Kobayashi said.

The Bears play their final non-conference game tonight against Concordia-Moorhead at 7 p.m. on Francis Field. They will face three University Athletic Association teams to round out the season: Brandeis University, conference-leading New York University, and the University of Chicago.

“We just want to keep winning and keep our record good to give ourselves the best chance of making the tournament and doing well,” Wright 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.”

The 13-win streak was the longest in all of NCAA Division III history.

“We were trying not to worry about what they had been doing and more about what we were doing,” freshman Lee Ann Felder said.

Wash. U. struck hard and fast as junior Caryn Rosoff scored in the 15th minute. Rosoff took a pass from junior Carter Schwarberg before beating Principia goalkeeper Mel Stein on a breakaway. Rosoff leads the team with five goals so far this season.

Principia fought to keep their streak alive, scoring in the 17th minute of the second half to tie the game up.

Wash. U. responded seven minutes later as junior Elyse Hanly connected on a pass from junior Becca Heymann, blasting the ball with a left-footed shot from 15 yards out.

Heymann took advantage of a free kick to add an insurance goal in the 77th minute. After Principia committed a foul right outside the box, Heymann quickly set up her shot.

“While they were setting up the wall, [Heymann] noticed that the goalkeeper was out of position and flicked the shot in,” senior Lauren Mehner said. “A quick restart catches people off guard. That’s something that you talk about that rarely happens.”

Both Mehner and Felder explained the rules behind the free kick. “When [the referees] call the foul, the ball has to be still and in the right place. Unless the referee is actively preventing you, you are free to shoot,” Mehner said.

“Usually what happens is the girls on defense will run really close to the ball and make a wall. The goalie goes to the side of the goal,” Felder said.

Principia didn’t do that and Heymann capitalized. “You don’t have to wait for the whistle,” Felder said.

Senior Amanda Boe, made six saves during the game to preserve the win.

The Red and Green also began the defense of their UAA title last Sunday against Carnegie Mellon University, picking up a 1-0 victory.

Felder connected with freshman Rachel Haas on a throw-in for the game winner. “[Haas] practically threw it to my head,” Felder said. “I ran toward the front post and it went in.” The goal was Felder’s fourth of the season.

Carnegie Mellon had a 5-2 advantage in corner kicks but failed to capitalize, taking only four shots in the entire game. Boe made one save to pick up the shutout as the Bears defense shut down Carnegie Mellon. “We possessed the ball,” Mehner said. “If we have the ball, they can’t score. A shutout is something we pride ourselves on.”

“We were excited to get two wins,” Head Coach Jim Conlon said. “That’s what we need going into October.

Wash. U. will continue UAA play this Sunday at Francis Field with an 11 a.m. game against rival Emory University. “We’re going to have to have one of our best games of the season,” Mehner said. “It’s going to be a high intensity game.”

“On the outside of the field and up top, we are returning a lot of players, but we graduated both of our center backs as well as key central midfielders. The players that are filling in those roles are playing well, and I expect them to pick up where last years’ seniors left off,” senior and co-captain Kevin Brege said.

The Bears are ranked sixth in Division III in the preseason NSCAA (National Soccer Coaches of America Association) poll, and they have been projected to finish second behind the defending UAA champion University of Rochester Yellowjackets.

“The rankings are not important to us, especially at this point in the season. Right now we are focusing on preparing for Sewanee and Birmingham Southern,” Brege said.

“I think it puts a target on your back. I don’t actually think that we’re the number five or number six team at this point. I think we’re capable of getting there, but I don’t think that we are there. We do have a target on us, so it will be interesting to see how we’re going to handle that,” Head Coach Joe Clarke said.

In order to get the team to a level worthy of sixth in the nation, Clarke has been working with the starters and reserve players to improve two vital aspects of the game: downfield passing and physical play. These two key areas have been emphasized due to the difference this team presents over last year’s team.

“We might actually have a little more depth than we had last year. We haven’t replaced the physicality of the three players that left that were starters. But we picked up more speed and quickness throughout the team,” Clarke said.

Part of this depth has been attributed to a talented freshman class competing for the final spots on the squad.

“Having so many quality freshmen not only helps this year’s team, but it also establishes a program that will continue to succeed years into the future,” Brege added.

“They’re going to raise the practice level and some of them are going to be able to step up and grab important playing minutes during the course of the year and help make our team better,” Clarke said about his freshman class.

The team opens its season on Friday against the University of the South during the Birmingham Southern College Labor Day Classic in Birmingham, Ala. The first home game will be on Sept. 9 against Principia College at 7 p.m.