The Lawrence University (Viking) men’s swimming and diving team season ended on a bittersweet note this past month in Grinnell, IA.  “Bittersweet”, in that, we had success, disappointment and the ending of an era rolled all into one weekend.  On paper, the Vikes were the clearly second strongest team prior to the start of the meet and in reality that is what the final score indicated, however it didn’t come quite that easy.    Early on in the term, the Vikes lost two key contributors and their only diver to illness or off-campus programs.  Consequently, the guy’s team collectively got together and decided they would not let things that they could not control interfere with their destiny.  After the first day, they were comfortably in second place and swimming very fast.  They placed top 12 in seven individual events along with two second place relays that day.  After a very good prelim session on the second day, the Vikes were feeling pretty confident about their possibilities.  That’s when the disappointment hit.  During the first event of the evening championship session, the Lawrence women’s 200 medley relay jumped an exchange and was DQed.  As the coaches were busy trying to find out what happened, the men’s 200 medley relay was in the pool and competing.  As the men were finishing, the regrouped and focused on the race at hand.    The men’s team finished second in that event and appeared to have broken the MWC record along with the first place team.  As the coaches were collecting times off the display board, a DQ flashed up next to the LU time indicating a frustrating change of circumstances that would dog LU for the rest of the meet.   With that clean sweep of both our relays, it it cleared the “wind straight out of our sails”!  The loss of points was enough to drop us to third place.  As the men went into the third day, Coach Kirner reminded them of the early season loss of talent and how they not to let it control their destiny.  Then, rallying around the strength of the LU freestylers the team finally regained second place late in the meet and forged on.    The team’s outstanding third day made the difference.  The women however didn’t fare quite as well.  The loss of points they experienced were too much to overcome.  The Lady Vikes finished out of third place by just 10.5 points.  

I also previously mentioned “the ending of an era” in referring to the weekend being bittersweet.  The fact is that, the Vikes saw one of  its best senior classes ever accounting for over 75 conference placings, 6 conference titles, 10 All-State honors, 4 team records and 1 conference record. (not to forget three outstanding captains).

Breaking the individual accomplishments down, team captain Nick Heuer won two conference titles in the 100 and 200 breaststroke with times of 59.60 and 2:09.47.  Additionally, the 200 time was a Midwest Conference record; he already holds the 100 breast record from 2003 season.  Other great performances were turned in by co-captain, Chris Perry who placed 4^th in the 100 fly with a personal record (PR) of 53.80.  Adam Kolb placed 2nd in two events, 500 free (4:51.62) and 1650 free (17:41.37) and 3^rd in the 200 (1:46.43, PR).  Steve Vander Naalt also placed 2^nd in the 100 back (54.94) and 200 back (2:00.27, PR), and 3^rd 200 IM (2:01.27).  These four swimmers along with teammates, Henry Brengel and team captain Chris Sarasin teamed up to place 2^nd in four of the five relay events (the fifth being the infamous DQed relay I spoke of earlier. 

Henry Brengel checks his time after his 50 free at MWC Championships

Lunchtime for swimmers in Florida!

Women's team wiht help from Coach puts a cheer together for the guys at the St. Kate's Invitational