Men’s Swimming and Diving Opens PL Season
This past weekend, the Colgate men’s swimming and diving team made the first mark on their Patriot League record. Unfortunately, they were unable to record a win as they fell to opponent Lehigh University at home on Saturday afternoon. After the last swimmer hit the pool, the final score came to 196-94 in favor of the Mountain Hawks.
Luckily for Colgate, two-team matchups don’t usually have a serious effect the outcome of league standings.
“Swimming dual meets don’t have any real value to the success of the season, but we use them to track our progress in the pool,” first-year Sam Ellis commented.
The 0-2 Raiders won three events throughout the entire meet, including the 400-yard freestyle relay with the team of senior captain Tucker Gniewek, sophomore Dan Sweeney, junior Teddy Perley, and junior Costas Hadjipateras. The Colgate squad finished the race with a solid time of 3:14.71.
In individual events, Hadjipateras won the 100-yard butterfly at 53.92. Senior Devon Healy also posted a win for the team when he finished the 400-yard individual medley with a time of 4:13.49, which was a mere .22 seconds ahead of Lehigh’s Chris Toth.
Unfortunately, the individual efforts of Toth, Hadjipateras and the freestyle relay group were not enough to carry the team to a victory. Even still, they will continue to work to better themselves as the season continues.
“Towards the end of the week we will do a lot of specialization in practice (Distance kids do distance, sprinters sprint, etc.),” Ellis explained. “Coach Fernando really wants us just to race with passion, as he says everything we do at a dual meet is ‘money in the bank’ for when we go to Patriots in February.”
Colgate will be back in action when the Raiders host Boston College next Saturday. A narrow loss to the Eagles in the previous season sparks the intensity of the men’s swimming team this year, all of whom look to take revenge and earn the victory, despite the loss this week.
“Lehigh was a great team and we did our best,” Ellis said. “We lost to BC by one point last year so there is no doubt that there are some strong feelings and eagerness to race fast and beat them this year.”
The meet against Boston College is slated to begin at 1:00 p.m. in Lineberry Natatorium.
