The AU swim teams traveled to Lexington, KY for a dual meet this past weekend. Coming off of winter training, the Ravens entered with a great deal of fatigue.
“Transitioning to swimming fast out of Christmas training is always a struggle for swimmers,” said AU coach Conner Snare in a press release. “We definitely saw that today against Transylvania. Our ladies, as a whole, came out and swam with their best effort; even through their fatigue. The men’s team was capable of winning this meet, but we did not show up to swim that way today. Hopefully this is a wake-up call for our guys while we’re still in search of our first win.”
Transylvania won the meet by a combined score of 199-109. The men were defeated 73-60, while the women lost 126-49. Milly Hensley won the 200 Freestyle with a time of 2:12.15. Andrew Taflinger won the 200 Fly (2:27.21) and Conner Page won the 200 Backstroke (2:11.85). Page, josh Ekberg, Kris Keller and Taflinger won the 200 Medley Relay in 1:53.80.
Hensley was proud of the way the team competed.
“We all went out there and raced,” she said. “Every swimmer on our team left everything they had in the pool.”
The Ravens winter training consisted of swimming over 50,000 miles. Carson Barteau explained that they could improve team morale when swimming while fatigued from practice, especially when it seems to be too much. “We come into meets tired,” he said, “but swimming tired is part of the sport.
“This makes the upcoming conference meet special. We will be well rested and anticipating our fastest times of the season.”
Both Barteau and Hensley are looking forward to Friday’s meet at Wittenberg and the continued opportunities to improve that it will afford.
“They outnumber us,” Barteau explained, “so it will be another meet to test our strengths and continue to get better.”
Hensley added, “Going into the Wittenberg meet, if we can keep the same mindset as we had against Transylvania, we should see some really good swims.”
The Wittenberg meet will begin at 5 p.m. in Springfield, Ohio. There will be a quick turnaround as the Ravens will host Olivet and Manchester on Saturday at 1 p.m.