The men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams are getting deep into the final weeks of the season the University Athletic Association Championship meet is less than three weeks away.
Before the ‘Jackets could focus their efforts on the UAA meet, though, they faced off against Ithaca College on Saturday.
The Bombers got the upper hand in the weekend’s meet UR men won five events but lost, 183-117, and the women won two events but fell, 197-103.
On the men’s side, sophomore Kevin Howard was a triple winner. He touched first in the 100 backstroke, the 200 backstroke and the 200 IM.
In two of Howard’s winning races, freshman Dmitry Petropavlovskiy was close behind, finishing third. Petropavlovskiy was third in the 100 backstroke and the 200 IM.
The big event for UR was the 1000. The Yellowjackets swept the event, with freshman Vincent Ness touching first, junior Pat Messmer second and freshman Casey Slone third.
Ness later went on to place second in the 500 free. Slone placed third right behind him.
Another key swimmer for the ‘Jackets was sophomore Bobbie McCue, who won the 200 breaststroke and was second in the 200 fly.
Sophomore Wesley Hood was second in both the 200 and 50 free. He also swam the lead off leg in the 400 free relay of Hood, freshman Colin Funai, McCue and Messmer, which touched in second place.
As the men prepare for their UAA meet, Howard assessed UR’s season thus far.
‘Dual meets are in-season checks of where you are progress reports, if you will,” Howard said. ‘Now it’s time for us to start tuning up for the final exam UAAs. If you put your work in all year, your final exam will be successful. We put our work in and are ready to rock the UAA.”
The women are also ready to swim well in the UAA, but they first had to deal with the disappointing loss to Ithaca College.
The women had two first-place finishes and several seconds and thirds in the loss.
Freshman Rackel Delahunta was the top finisher on the 3-meter board with a score of 235.95.
Senior Cheryl Blechman finished third on the 3-meter board with 201.70.
The 400 free relay team of sophomores Liz Subjeck and Val Atwood, junior Dayna Jacob and freshman Olivia Ehmann produced the one relay win in the pool, touching the wall in a time of 3:48.80.
Other strong Yellowjacket performances came from freshman Emily Scott, who scored three runner-up finishes for UR.
Scott touched second in the 200 free in a time of 2:01.93, the 50 free in 25.16 and the 100 free in 55.76.
Jacob was third in the 100 free, and sophomore Shannon Moss was third in the 100 backstroke with a time of 1:05.66. Subjeck was second in the 500 free in 5:31.64.
The closest race of the day was a second-place finish for UR Atwood was just .16 seconds behind the winner in the 100 backstroke. Atwood clocked in at a time of 1:02.51. She was also second in the 200 backstroke in a time of 2:15.61.
Both the men and women of UR swimming fought hard this weekend but were unable to defeat a tough Ithaca squad. The Yellowjackets are 3-7 in dual meets this year.
Including Saturday’s race against Ithaca, Howard has won the 100 backstroke seven times so far this season.
He has also excelled in the 200 backstroke and was given honorable mention this week on the UAA Web site for his performance on Saturday against the Bombers.
The Yellowjackets will look to redeem themselves at their final meet of the season, the UAA Championships, hosted by the University of Chicago on Thursday, Feb. 12. In UAA competition, the ‘Jackets are 0-2.
They lost to New York University and Case Western Reserve University in a tri-meet the Yellowjackets hosted in November.
Rogers is a member of the class of 2012.
