By Mikael Desanto
Staff Writer
On Nov. 20 to 22, the St. Bonaventure Bonnies swam at the Pittsburgh Invitational, finishing in third place out of six schools behind the University of Pittsburgh, the host team, and Bowling Green State University.
The brown and white found success in the 1650-yard freestyle, which equals one mile, with a sixth-place finish by senior Shannon Haberman, along with three top-eight finishes in the 200-yard butterfly.
Freshman Adele Ferris placed seventh. Senior Elizabeth Malone swam her way to fourth place while senior Tanja Kirmse picked up the team’s highest finish of the meet at second place.
In addition, Kirmse was a part of the 400-yard freestyle relay team that managed a fifth-place finish.
“We had a lot of strong performances, including our diver and the relays,” Kirmse said. “We showed what we’re capable of and we will work hard to be even better at our championships.”
Despite what the team has been able to achieve, Haberman said it knows it still needs to keep working.
“For A-10s, we will wish to perform better, so we will continue our hard training and prepare for that meet by tapering (a form of resting for a meet),” Haberman said. “The mental and physical toughness will be keys to enhancing our performance over the next few months.”
The Bonnies will not swim again until mid-January, giving them over a month to train and prepare for the home stretch of the season. Kirmse said she believes this will be an important time for the team to improve.
“We will focus on practices and go on a training trip to Florida during Christmas break,” Kirmse said.
Haberman also sees this time between meets as important to the team’s season, as it will be have a different schedule than they normally follow.
“The most important thing between meets is to get in quality practices,” she said. “During weeks with meets our schedule is broken up due to the meet, so being able to have some time off from meets lets us focus on our strokes and work on getting stronger.”
Kirmse and Haberman have looked back on how the team’s season has gone so far, since it is their final season of collegiate swimming.
Haberman said she has seen the positives throughout the year and how the Pittsburgh Invitational has affected the team’ season.
“We have been working hard in practice, and the Pitt Invite shows the results of our hard work,” Haberman said. “It’s a long season, and we are about halfway through it, but the Pitt Invite has started to prepare us for the main goal, which is A-10s.”
Kirmse said she is excited about the future of the program and sees how the team has improved since last year.
“We are in better shape overall than last season, and our freshmen class is strong,” she said. “We only had a few injuries, and everybody is working hard.”
The Bonnies’ next meet will be an away meet on Jan. 16 against Binghamton University.
