Swimming Gets Season Off to Promising Start

Individual Swimmers Give Excellent Performances

The Oberlin swimming and diving team got their season on a positive note even if they didn't come out with great standings.

On Oct. 28, the team went to Gambier, OH to compete in the NCAC relays. Although they didn't finish on top, there were some "excellent individual performances," according to Assistant Coach Brian Jones, who was a member of the team last year.

The lack of great finishes is not that upsetting to the team since the meet consisted of sprinting relays, which don't actually occur in regular meets.

"That meet is interesting because we do a lot of events that we don't normally do during the season, so you can't really consider it a litmus test for the rest of the season considering those are off events that we won't swim again," Jones said.

Kenyon, who hosted the match, swept the competition. The men won all eight swimming events and the women finished second overall.

"[Kenyon] normally does extremely well. They just have strong team and they have a large draw of incoming freshmen," Jones said. "We do a lot of recruiting but we can't draw that many strong swimmers."

The Oberlin divers went to Denison where the diving events were being held, also coming away without any marks high on the board. Senior Aaron Hillyer finished sixth on the low board and fourth on the high board. Senior Molly Benson only dove from the low board and finished fifth.

Despite the fact the results are not that important, since records are not cumulative and only the conference championship really matters, some of the Oberlin swimmers performed exceptionally well.

Junior Celeste Mercer proved that last year's All-American award was no fluke swimming exceptionally well in the first event of the season. She had the fastest 100m IM time in the meet and the second fastest 50m fly time ‹ second only to the current national champion.

First-year Burt Betchart also swam extremely well. On Saturday he swam one of the fastest 50m splits seen from an Oberlin team member in a couple of years.

The men's 200 medley is also particularly strong and looks promising according to Jones.

The team is in a growth phase and the season should show positive improvements.

"We're more interested in people improving as individuals and our relays improving than beating the next team," Jones said.

The women's team has a strong junior class, which includes Mercer, Becky Ducore, Hannah Gothschall and Julia Handelman. These Yeowomen, along with the rest of the promising talent on the team, should make this season a success.