WKU Swimming and Diving Teams Defeat Cumberland

Coming off the annual Red and White Intrasquad Meet, the WKU men's and women's swimming and diving teams took on Cumberland in Bowling Green on Halloween.  After recording a combined 26 first place victories during the day, the men's team defeated Cumberland 161-108 while the women's team won the meet 166-107.

"As a whole, I thought we got up and raced well today," head coach Bruce Marchionda said.  "We are coming off a very, very hard training cycle from this week and it was very obvious to me just watching them swim how tired they are.  We had a few people that got up and swam very well for being as tired as they are.  I always tell them the faster you swim when you are tired, the better off you are going to be.  Overall, I was very pleased with most of the performances.  There were a few that I thought could have been better and a few people that could have been a little more aggressive at the front end of their races, but it's the time of the year when you are tired and beat up."

In the women’s c competition, the Lady Toppers won the opening event, the 200 yard medley relay, behind the efforts of Laurel Chaney, Chelsea Stephens, Kristiana Feeser and Meredith Dement.  The relay team posted a time of 1:46.55 to pick up the first place win.  Following the relay win, the Lady Toppers continued to post impressive times.

"Individually, Luke Musser had a very strong swim in the 200 Breaststroke," Marchionda said.  On the women's side, Claire Alexandre just missed a pool record in the 500 Free by sixth tenths of a second and in the 50 Free by a tenth of a second.  For her, those two swims were outstanding."

Claire Alexandre had an outstanding meet for the Lady Toppers picking up two wins for WKU after winning the 50 Free with a time of 23.91 and the 500 Free after posting a time of 5:00.89, over 30 seconds faster than the second place finisher.

In the 1000 Free, Maggie Skiles posted a time of 10:33.17 to claim first place.  The Lady Toppers also picked up the victory in the 200 Free after Hilary Mishler touched the wall in 1:55.76 to give WKU yet another victory. 

Stephanie Terrell started off her day in the 100 Back posting a time of 58.30 to take home a first place win while Brittany Doss also had a successful day winning the 100 Breast with a time of 1:06.03.

In the 200 Fly, Claire Donahue continued to post impressive times winning the event with a time of 2:03.05, over nine seconds fast than the second place finisher.   Donahue then went on to pick up the victory in the 100 Free with a time of 52.53

The WKU women’s team finished their winning run by picking up wins in the 200 Back and 200 Breast.   Casey DeRidder won the 200 Back after finishing with a time of 2:08.19 while Stephanie Martin won the 200 Breast with a time of 2:20.76. 

In the men’s competition, WKU racked up their first win in the 200 medley relay.  The team of Ethan Arave, Luke Musser, Stephen Claycomb and Zane Rowland finished the relay with a time of 1:34.42 to barely outpace WKU’s second team of Cameron Watkins, Chris Donahue, Nick Slattery and Billy Kunkel, who finished with a time of 1:34.47.

In addition to the relay, Musser added a win in the 200 Breast after finishing the race with a time of 2:05.12.

David Rayner also got in on the success winning the 1000 Free with a time of 9:43.74 while Sean Penhale picked up the victory in the 200 Free with a time of 1:43.00.  Penhale also captured a win in the 500 Free with a time of 4:34.63.

Ethan Arave also picked up an individual win during the meet winning the 100 Back after touching the wall in 52.81.  Then in the 100 Breast, Chris Donahue and Bryan Mell battled it out until the very end with Donahue finishing with a time of 59.78 and Mell posting a time of 59.94. 

To finish out WKU’s wins, Cameron Higdon won the 200 Fly with a time of 1:53.11, Billy Kunkel picked up the win in the 100 Free (46.96) and Cameron Watkins won the 200 Back (1:51.83).

In the diving competitions, Kylie Ruiz won the women’s one meter and three meter diving competition with 218.63 and 227.25 points.  Jim Ritter posted 220.73 in the three meter dive and won the one meter competition after racking up 239.10 points.

"Today was fun because we tried to get some very even medley relay teams together," Marchionda said.  I told them that, when appropriate and in compliance with rules, we would get them pizza or something like that.  I think they raced harder for the pizza than the competition.  I think they did a nice job handling themselves against a team that is also very tired."

The WKU swimming and diving teams will host Xavier next weekend at 1 p.m.   "We are looking forward to the next couple of weeks," Marchionda stated.  We have Xavier next week and that will be a fun test for us.  But, we aren't going to back off of our training at that point.  We will look for good performances at the Hilltopper Invite, which will feature six teams and then we will start easing off a little more.  Then, we go down to New Orleans and Tulane to finish off the semester.  Hopefully, we'll be able to get some good performances there."