by Ryan Signorino
Staff Writer
The St. Bonaventure University men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams were defeated by Cornell University at the Reilly Center pool yesterday afternoon.
The men lost 168-124, and the women lost 181-116. Senior Michael White won two individual events, the 200-butterfly and the 200-breaststroke. Junior Alyssa Levac won the 100-breaststroke and took second in the 100-butterfly and the 200-individual medley.
Junior Maria Rocchi also added a pair of top-3 finishes, taking second in the 100-breaststroke and winning the 200-breaststroke.
In diving, sophomores Ryan McLaughlin and Brittany Hart both placed first in the 1-meter dive with scores of 252.68 (McLaughlin) and 241.58 (Hart), a personal best for Hart.
Women’s head coach Brian Thomas said that he has started to protect some of the top swimmers a bit for the Atlantic 10 Championship meet in a month, and that move ended up slightly costing the team.
“It wasn’t the difference between winning and losing the meet by any means, but certainly, competing against a team from the Ivy League that has a lot of talent collected on it, I was really happy with how we performed,” said Thomas.
Thomas said a big thing he saw that he liked was the team didn’t swim scared.
“I think sometimes when you have someone come in as talented as Cornell, you can start to get timid and scared, but I was happy with the aggressiveness,” said Thomas.
The swimmers will swim in two more dual meets before taking time off before A10s. On Jan. 27, the teams will travel to Buffalo, and then will take on Niagara at home on Jan. 28 for senior day.
“Buffalo is a really tough opponent for us. They’re one of the better teams in the MAC, and they’re one of those teams we want to start closing the gap with,” said Thomas. “It’ll be a fun meet on Friday afternoon, probably a shortened format with a lot of short races, so we’ll look to get better.”
Thomas also expressed his excitement for senior day, as well as his appreciation for the four women on his team and their dedication over the course of this season, and the past four years.
“Our four seniors have been phenomenal from day one when I started in May. It makes all the difference in the world to have seniors who are committed to what we’re trying to do,” said Thomas. “It’s very easy to just check out when you have one year to go and you’re on your third coach in four years, but they’re awesome. Those four seniors should be celebrated. It’ll be a fun day for sure.”
The seniors being honored are breaststroker and individual medley swimmer Matt Goettler, freestyler and breaststroker Kevin Grant, backstroker Taylor Hodges, freestyler Jack Hughes, butterflyer and freestyler Bridget Jordan, breaststroker Michael Le, butterflyer Emily Quinn, breaststroker and individual medley swimmer Preston Schilling, freestyler Alex Szakelyhidi, White, an individual medley swimmer, and freestyler Maggie Woods.
signorra15@bonaventure.edu
