Swimming Wins and Loses
by Liz Logan

The swim team’s third meet of the season at home on Saturday, Nov. 10 ended with a victory for the men and a close loss for the women. The men’s team brought in a final score of 116 to 106, and the women lost with a hard-fought 107 to 128.

Saturday’s meet saw stellar performances from the men’s team, including sophomore Bert Betchart, who was a triple winner, coming in with first place in the 400 free relay, the 200 back, and the 50 free. “Betchart gave us the leadoff leg in the freestyle relay to win the meet — he gave us a lead of the pool. We had our four best freestyle sprinters for that relay — we loaded it, and that made it all work out,” Coach Dick Michaels said.
Finishing with a time of 2:02:57 in the backstroke event, Betchart blew his competitors out of the water. The closest swimmer from Ohio Wesleyan was lagging a whole seven seconds behind Betchart. “He’s doing really well for this time of year, he thrashed the OWU guy,” Michaels said.

Also on the winning 400 free relay team was first-year Ben Pierce, who also finished with second place in the 100 free. Another star swimmer was sophomore Joel Ketner, who placed second in three events: the 200 individual medley, the 200 back, and the 200 breast. In the backstroke event, only Betchart came in ahead of Ketner.

Though the women’s team suffered a loss, Saturday’s competition was full of exceptional performances. As usual, senior All-American Celeste Mercer brought in many victories for her team. The co-captain was a triple winner, taking the 400 medley relay, the 100 free and the 200 IM by storm.

“What a solid meet she had!” Michaels said. “OWU had a tough meet with Wittenberg on Friday night, which they tied. They came in tired, thinking they were going to walk all over us, but we loaded the first [400 medley] relay. On the fly leg, Mercer had an amazing split, taking off two body lengths behind the OWU swimmer and finishing two body lengths ahead,” Michaels said.

The relay’s speed was then continued by sophomore Nikki Middaugh. Other outstanding showings came from first year Kim Davis, who finished with first place in both the 1000 free and the 200 back events, beating an OWU rival in the backstoke event by a mere .17 of a second. Second and third places in the 1000 free were earned by junior Rani Khan and sophomore Meagen Dunphy-Daly.
“After we swept them in the 1000, we were really smoking them,” Michaels said. “After that, they had to change their lineup and try to get back into [the meet].” Oberlin’s divers helped keep the team in the competition, particularly sophomore Abbey Weiland, who won second place on low and high board.
The swimmer with the most endurance had to be Dunphy-Daly, who competed in 1700 yards worth of races. “She scolded me for putting her in that many events, because she’s never done that many yards in a meet. She ended up swimming three lifetime best times in three different events — the 1000 free, 500 free and 200 breast. It was an outstanding performance on her part,” Michaels said.
“This was a fun meet,” Michaels said. “We always have a good meet with [Ohio Wesleyan] — it’s always a friendly rivalry, and we’ve had close scores the past couple of years. We’ve had a great week, with close, competitive, fun meets with Ohio Wesleyan and Baldwin Wallace. It’s fun to compete against people you can compete against. With Denison, we had no chance. It’s fun when we have a chance to win— the men did, and the women narrowly missed. This week has been very satisfying for us as a team,” he said.