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Loras Sweeps Beloit

The Loras College Swimming and Diving team returned home Friday night for a meet against the Bucs of Beloit College and came put victorious on both sides of the meet. The women won 126-86 and the men won 130-78.

The meet started off great for the Duhawks with the women taking first and second in the women's 400 Medley Relay. The first place team, made up of senior Mary Kathryn Maher, senior Alexis Mollahan, junior Logan Miller and senior Renee Beach, finished with a time of 4:25.19. The second place team of junior Heather Black, senior Clare Ehlbeck, freshman Kimberly Breaux and junior Jessica LaLonde came in at the time of 4:26.62.

The men's side of the 400 Medley Relay nearly followed in identical suit with the Duhawks taking first and second, but instead Loras took first and third in this event. Sophomore Ike Casey got his team and they never looked back taking first place with a time of 3:52.67. Joining Casey on the relay was senior Matthew DeWane and Greg Duncan, and junior Greg Cormier.

The other Duhawk relay of freshmen Thomas Priewe, Dillan Schweinler, Danny Cepeda and junior Antoinio Gonzalez were neck and neck with the Beloit relay in lane two until a fast race in the fly leg from sophomore Kyle May gave the Bucs an edge and that was enough to propel them to a second place finish.

The women continued their fast start with another first and second place finish in the women's 1000 Free. Junior Elise Amo and senior Desiree Tamez went first and second respectively (11:30.60, 12:25.00).
Mollahan struck gold in the 200 Free, finishing first with a time of 2:03.80. What paced her to this win was a fast start in her first 50 yards in which she earned a 29.31 split.

The trend of fast starts continued into the men's side of the 200 Free. Freshman David Hayes and Cepeda grabbed first and second respectively (2:00.35, 2:05.29). Their first 50 yards for each of them is what made the difference in this races' outcome. Hayes completed the first leg in 27.44 and Cepeda in 29.51. 

In the women's 50 Free, the Duhawks took first and third, Breaux took first (27.07) and Beach took third (28.11). Breaux's flip turn is what gave her the edge in this race. She got to the wall and the speed of the turn really set her apart from the rest of the group and gave her the win.

The men's side of the 50 Free had the same result as the women's side, with the men taking first and third. Junior Zachary Benson took first with a time of 22.76. DeWane was in close battle for second but could not take the lead and ended up in third (23.28) only losing by .01 seconds to second place. 

Ehlbeck and freshman Ysey Cosme-Rodriguez led the way for the Duhawks in the women's 200 IM. Ehlbeck took first (2:22.74) and Cosme-Rodriguez took third (2:46.24). The difference in the race for Ehlbeck was the pull out going from her breaststroke leg to her backstroke leg. Much power came from this pull out, which gave her the lead and helped take home the win.

Cormier and senior Matthew Bogen were the frontrunners for the Duhawks in the men's side of the 200 IM. Cormier took first (2:12.51) and Bogen in second (2:16.09). Cormier was tied for the lead early until his backstroke leg came and separated him from the rest of the swimmers.

For the women's 400 Free relay, head coach Doug Colin made the team of junior Heather Black, LaLonde, Amo and Tamez. This team ended up taking first (4:09.52) and what helped them to this win was the start that Black got them off to. She grabbed the early lead by splitting a 28.58 in her first 50 yards. This would give the Duhawks the lead which they would not let go of for the rest of the race.

On the men's side of the 400 Free relay, the team for the Duhawks was sophomore Michael Krol, Schweinler, Casey and Bogen. After the first swimmers were done, the Beloit relay had the advantage. This was the case until Schwenler got into the water and helped move the race to a close tie. Schweinler tied the race by swimming a 56.04 in his leg of the race. This close in the gap, gave room for Casey up next to pull away and he did just that by splitting a 47.18 in his leg of the race. The relay ended up taking first with a time of 3:33.54.

With these wins tonight for the Duhawks on both sides of the meet, the men and women both move to 4-3 on the year.

"It is all part of a pyramid to get to the top and we are still a month out from our championship meet, next weeks our last meet before that. So its just trying to fine tune and look for things that need to be fixed and where we are at in our training and make sure that we are going to the right place," Colin said.

The Duhawks will be back in action next Friday, as they play host to Illinois Institute of Technology on senior night. The meet is set to start at 6:30 p.m.

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