By Ann Tomko
The Women’s Swimming and Diving Team continued to prove their talents by beating Ohio Northern on Friday November 18, as the Men’s team fell short. The meet started with amazing race in the 200-yard medley with Sarah Wilson, Keaton Hannon, Molly Gustafson, and Ward McNulty taking the win. The men’s team placed second in the same race.
Transfer student Claire Shannon continues to rise above her competition. She kept the lead in the whole 1000-yard freestyle, loving every minute in her new conference. And throughout the entire race, Shannon knew her coach was right there to keep her on track.
“I pay attention to my coach,” said Shannon. “She’ll give me hand signals as to what to do.”
The race is very long with a total of 40 laps swum. Shannon explains she does not let the length of a race slow her down:
“When I race the 1000 free I actually sing Baby Got Back by Sir Mix A Lot because that’s the only song I know every word to from beginning to end.”
Two of Shannon’s teammates, Melissa Hascher and Alison Mersch finished second and third, helping contribute to the team. ONU kept the lead for the men’s meet, but Ed Young still contributed some points by placing second in the long race.
The women continued to dominate with a tight race in the 50-yard freestyle, Ward McNulty taking home first place and Sinjin McNicholl taking home second place. Jane Tsivitse earned yet again another win in the 100-yard freestyle with a time of 55.97.
Senior Gus Appenbrink’s perfect form off the board won the 1 meter diving with several great scores, one in particular included sevens across the board from three judges. His scores totaled to 278.70 in the end.
After the first set of dives, senior Keaton Hannon got back in the water to start the second half of the meet with the women’s 100-yard butterfly. She performed very well and came in first place with a time of 1:01.45.
“[We] are thrilled about the potential we have and we’re all feeding off of each other’s talents and excitement so I think we’ll be capable of doing great things at conference, and possibly even pass that to nationals this year,” said Shannon on the women’s performance this semester.
The men’s team redeemed themselves the next day with a win against Oberlin, 132-107, and the women’s team continues to be undefeated by crushing Oberlin, 152-82. Both teams continue their season on December 2 and 3 at DePauw.
(Ann Tomko / s13.atomko@wittenberg.edu)
