An early deficit cost the Western Illinois men's swimming and diving team Saturday (Oct. 10) in a 134-108 loss to South Dakota. The Leathernecks' women's squad fell 141-66.
"We did struggle a bit at the beginning of the meet from our long travel going to Omaha, and then up to Vermillion," said head coach Greg Naumann. "We did wake our legs up going into the middle section of the meet, but we allowed USD to get too much of a lead. This just allows the team to realize that we need to warm-up a little differently when we travel to meets for the future."
On the men's side, Western Illinois scored their first top finish in the men's 200-medley relay. The team of Samir Almhiemid, JD Furr, Chris Neaveill and Tyler Neaveill put together a 1:47.33 swim. Dylon Rykosky, John Hall and the Neaveill brothers also took first in the 200-free relay with a time of 1:36.69.
In the men's 400-IM, Hall took first in 4:44.18, with Matt Abercrombie right behind him at 4:48.53. Chris Neaveill then recorded a first-place touch in the 100-fly in 57.15, with Almhiemid (59.83) and Cameron Van De Velde (1:00.08) taking third and fourth, respectively.
Rykosky took the men's 100-free in 53.33. In the 200-free, Rykosky scored a second-place touch in 1:58.14.
Furr (1:06.51), Kyle Siebert (1:10.12) and Ryan Miller (1:11.25) took second through fourth in the 100-back. The Leathernecks also registered second-place finishes in the 50-free (Tyler Neaveill, 25.00) and 100-back (Almhiemid, 1:01.36).
Viktor Rusenas earned a 238.73 score to finish in second in the three-meter dive.
Coming off a meet the night prior in Omaha, the Western women did not post a first-place swim until event 19, with Amanda Schaefer putting together a 4:46.89 time in the 400-free. Schaefer also came in second in the 800-free in 9:49.27.
The Leathernecks recorded two late first-place finishes. Sarah Rosenhauer took the 100-breast in 1:20.54, just ahead of Andie Villez's 1:21.12 time. The team of Lizzie Hollopeter, Marissa Purdum, Erica Hagen and Alli DeWane won the 200-free relay in 1:56.38.
Hagen touched in third in the 100-back in 1:11.00 while Hannah Fisher (5:02.16) and Amy Borgstede (5:18.86) finished in second and third, respectively, in the 400-free.
In the one-meter dive, Melanie Pearson scored 208.05 to come in second.
We had some good highlights throughout the meet with strong finishes," Naumann said. "We will look to continue on with our training since we are seeing a good amount of improvement from meet to meet. We will have some meets that are going to be a little tougher, but this is just what we have to do in order to prepare for conference."
Both the Western Illinois men's and women's teams are back in the pool in a meet on Friday (Oct. 6) against Illinois, Eastern Illinois and Olivet Nazarene in Champaign.
