The swim teams expected nothing more than a good swim from the University Athletic Association Championships at Emory University last weekend.
The women placed sixth and the men took seventh out of eight teams. However, the Yellowjackets “performed very well as a team and came out with some outstanding individual performances,” sophomore swimmer Mike Tynan said.
“The UAA conference is a very competitive one,” he said. “With that in mind, you can only go in expecting to do the best that you can.”
Head coach Julie Benker-O’Brien agreed. “I am really impressed with how they put up with the adversity,” she said. “Despite knowing that the standings would not really change much after the preliminary rounds, they still went out there and swam hard.”
After the first day of competition, the UR women were in sixth place and the men were in seventh.
One individual and two relays finished in the top eight in their events for the women.
On the boards, senior diver Kelly Coulehan placed sixth in the both the one-meter and three-meter diving.
The 400-yard medley relay of juniors Kristin Broderick and Jacque Staple, sophomore Tiffany Siu and freshman Ann Richards placed fifth in 4:12.51. The 200-yard freestyle relay of Staple, senior captain Christina deVries, Broderick and Richards placed sixth in 1:43.18.
In Friday’s preliminaries, Staple qualified for the finals in the 100-yard breaststroke. She finished sixth in a time of 1:09.45 in the prelims and took seventh place in the finals in 1:09.85.
“We always anticipate tough competition,” Staple said. “But it never stops to amaze me how it gets faster every year.”
Broderick also reached the final round in the 100-yard backstroke in a time of 1:02.23, but unfortunately ran into a problem during the swim.
“My goggles fell off, so I was really disappointed about that,” she said. “That’s my best event and I had hoped to go for a personal best time, but its really hard to concentrate when something unexpected like that happens.”
Despite placing eighth in the race, Broderick remained upbeat about the overall competition.
“I think the team performed really well,” Broderick said. “We had a lot of swimmers getting personal best times, which is the most important thing at a meet like this.”
“This is the meet we train for all year, and its always nice when you do your best,” she added. “It’s a nice way to end the season.”
Men place seventh
On the men’s side of the deck, UR earned 66 points in team scoring on Thursday. The 200-yard freestyle relay team of sophomores Ryan Montgomery and Mike McCormick, freshman Alex Provan and junior Mike Reinhardt was seventh in 1:29.82. The 400-medley relay of sophomores Brian Immerman, Marc Radloff, McCormick and Montgomery finished sixth in 3:37.32
In Friday morning’s preliminary swim, Radloff made the finals in the 100-yard breaststroke in a time of 59.79, finishing fifth. In the finals, he placed eighth overall with a time of 1:00.11.
Aside from the power relays and Radloff’s race, Benker-O’Brien was impressed with the whole team. “We had some really good drops [in season-best times],” she said. “Sophomore Eric Schweigert, juniors Adam Simmons and Jon Ferland were just a few.”
The UAA Championships officially ended UR’s swim season. However, the Yellowjackets are already setting their sights on their 2002-2003 season.
“I hope that we can improve our record and our times and swim even better,” Tynan said. “Hopefully, we will have a strong freshman class that will add to our team and make as that much better.”
Wu can be reached at jwu@campustimes.org.
