Pam BuzzettaSenior Victor Acevedo was so exhausted at last weekend’s Washington University Invitational that he paid little attention to the meet being his last ever at Millstone pool.
Instead, the only thing he could think about was what he would eat for dinner: veal or tacos.
“It was sad that it was our last home meet,” Acevedo said. “But at the same time you’re so tired that you’re like, ‘I don’t care, get me out of here. I just want to go eat and sleep.'”
Despite the swimmers’ fatigue from training so intensely for the UAA Championships, which is being held February 12-15, the women still captured first place out of six teams with 1,095 points, while the men took second out of seven teams with 799.50 points.
The swimmers expected their tiredness to result in slower times than usual. However, the women still had numerous first place finishes, including those of freshmen Allie Boettger in the 100 (1:08.47) and 200 breaststroke (2:29.68), Tracey Hendrickson in the 200 IM (2:13.46) and 100 butterfly (1:00.53) and Jennifer Scott in the 200m (2:00.14) and the 500 freestyle (5:16. 78).
“Everybody that got in the water swam really good races, even if the times weren’t that spectacular,” Boettger said. “I think the tough training that we put in just helped us to finish those hard races.”
In addition, sophomores Su Wang and Sarah Goldberg captured first place in the 200 butterfly (2:21.24) and 1650 freestyle (18:40.37), respectively. WU also won the 200-medley relay (1:53.81), 400-freestyle relay (3:42.55) and the 800-freestyle relay (8:04.44).
“Everyone was so worn out after the meet that we were just glad it was over,” senior Laurel Jacobson said. “We honestly didn’t have our best meet of the year because we’re pretty broken down… this meet wasn’t really about winning, it’s more like getting through it.”
On the opposite end of the pool, the divers were busy winning events as well, as junior Paloma Garner won the one-meter diving and sophomore Julie Heidbreder took first in three-meter diving. Though there were only two other women divers at the meet (from DePauw and Lindenwood Universities), Garner attested that the competition was fierce.
“This is probably the most competitive meet that we’ve had,” Garner said. “For the guys and the girls, the quality of diving was a lot better at this meet, just because of the schools that were there.
Senior Ryan Braun continued his dominance on the boards with a first place finish in the one-meter diving. In addition to Braun, freshman Michael Slavik won the 200 freestyle (1:46.59) and freshman Eric Triebe grabbed first place in the 200 breaststroke (2:14.33). The men also took first in the 200-medley relay (1:37.40) with the teamof Slavik, Triebe, and seniors Jon Vigdorchik and Matt Johnson.
“We had good time, even though we were pretty tired, which is a good sign because that means that even though you’re broken down you still challenge yourself and it gives you confidence for conference finals,” Acevedo said.
As for the conference championships, both the men and women expect to surpass their fourth place finishes from last year. They would also like to qualify individuals for the relays for the NCAA Championships, in the hope of placing in the top ten at nationals.
“We all set goals at the beginning of the year,” Boettger said. “The [women’s] goal was to place top two at conference, and have five relays make ‘A’ [national] qualifying times. Now, I feel confident we can do that.”
As senior Rachel Feldman pointed out, the team must concentrate on the conference championships before it can start thinking seriously about nationals.
“We have to worry about ‘conference’ first or we won’t get to nationals… we want relays to get fast enough times to go to nationals.”
While WU has not faced any of its conference foes this season, the swimmers have been keeping tabs on their competition, and, at least on paper, the outlook for the conference championships looks bright.
“I don’t know how many other [teammates] do this,” Triebe said, “but I get bored after practice and I go online and compare their times to ours, and I think it’s looking pretty good.
With the two most important competitions of the season still to come, it’s easy to understand why the seniors weren’t necessarily teary-eyed at their last home meet of the season.
“There’s still a lot of unfinished business in the pool that thinking about it being my last meet wasn’t on my mind,” said senior Joel Ristuccia. “I can’t even start thinking about the end [of my collegiate swimming career] because there’s so much to done.”