By Ryan Signorino
Staff Writer
The St. Bonaventure University men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams celebrated their seniors with a win over Niagara, Saturday. The men topped the Purple Eagles 149-92, and the women won 157-75.
The swim teams only dropped a combined four events. In women’s diving, freshman Elena Rohr won 3-meter events and placed second in the 1-meter event with scores of 234.90 and 222.90, respectively. Sophomore Brittany Hart won the 1-meter with 244.35 and came in second on the 3-meter at 221.25. Sophomore Ryan McLaughlin finished second in the two men’s events: 241.43 in the 1-meter and 248.45 in the 3-meter.
The highlight of the meet was the 100-freestyle, in which both the women and the men took the top three spots. Senior Bridget Jordan (54.80), senior Maggie Woods (54.94) and freshman Sam Kuchinski (55.31) won the women’s race, and junior Jordan Powers (46.99), sophomore Robert Marshall (48.19) and freshman David Shakhnazarov (48.48) won for the men.
Powers also won the other two events he took part in. He won the 50-freestyle in a time of 21.27 and swam the third leg of the 200-freestyle relay along with junior Matt Taccard, Shakhnazarov and senior Michael White, which finished at 1:24.44.
Women’s head coach Brian Thomas said he was happy with the performance the team put out in their final dual meet.
“We performed the way we wanted to perform going into our conference championship. Our goal every year is to get better throughout each dual meet as we come upon the A10 championship, and we were able to do that this year,” said Thomas. “Today was a good indication of where we are and where we’ll be in two and a half weeks. We’re going to get into our rest period here, continue that and see what it means in a couple weeks.”
The Atlantic 10 Championship runs from Feb. 15 to Feb. 18 in Geneva, Ohio. Thomas said before then, the team needs to continue to work on the details of their swimming.
“Maybe from my perspective, trying to make sure they remain calm and have a lot of faith in the work they’ve already put in,” said Thomas. “That’s the most important thing.”
He said since the team has been consistent since August, as long as they keep up the same level of consistency, they should perform well.
“I think we’ll be having fun on the pool deck and enjoying our time around each other as we wrap up the season,” said Thomas. “I want them focusing on enjoying the process. I’ll focus on the process itself and making sure we’re uncovering everything we can and being as detailed as we can.”
signorra15@bonaventure.edu
