On Senior Day, it was a pair of first-years who made waves, breaking records as the men split, beating Lafayette 157-106 and losing to Army 195-77, while the women won against both opponents, defeating Army 206-73 and Lafayette 219.5-56.5. This weekend marked the end of the regular season for the team, setting their season records at 1-9 for the men and 8-3 for the women.

Toppling one of the oldest standing records, first-year Dan Sweeney shattered the first-year record for the 100 yard butterfly with a time of 51.39. He beat the previous record, set in 1982, by just one-tenth of a second. In this race, Sweeney was swimming in exhibition. He did, however, take home one of the three Raider individual victories in the 50-yard freestyle. The other two wins came from juniors Tucker Gniewek in the 100 yard-freestyle and Devon Healy in the 400-yard individual medley. Healy captured the event by just .02 seconds with a time of 4:11.93.

In the diving pool, first-year Kim Pilka broke the first-year record for the three-meter diving competition with a score of 280.55. Pilka’s score has qualified her to compete at Zones, which will be held at Rutgers. The Raider women also witnessed the fall of another new pool record as junior Caren Guyette bested the previous record for the 500-yard freestyle by nearly .50 seconds.

On the whole, the women captured 14 swimming events along with Pilka’s diving victory as they extended their winning streak to seven consecutive meets. In taking Saturday’s win, the women swept seven events: the 500 yard freestyle, the 100 yard breaststroke, 200 yard butterfly, 100 yard freestyle, 200 yard breaststroke, 500 yard freestyle and 400 individual yard medley.

“We are extremely proud of our 8-3 record,” senior captain Caitie Curran said. “We worked hard this entire year and to have it pay off in our races on the weekends gives us all confidence in our training and performances. But, we have a common goal that keeps us motivated throughout the season: to defend our title. To bring that trophy back to Colgate, to be the three time defending champions is what we want and are striving towards. We won’t be satisfied with anything else and our regular season record won’t mean anything if we walk away without any hardware.”

With the team traveling to attend the Patriot League Championships in two weeks, the time has come to put all of the team’s passion and talent on the line.

“We just need to keep up this motivation and not become complacent in thinking that the title is just going to be handed to us,” Curran added. “We need to keep working hard and getting the job done in and out of the pool in order to achieve our goals at the end of the season. I don’t want to say that we are cocky and overly confident going into Patriots but we have confidence in our training and in each other to get the job done. We are willing to put everything on the line when it comes to championships and bring home that third team title.”

Navy will host the 2009-2010 Patriot League Championships in Annapolis, MD.