Blue Wave swims past two conference opponents
James Costanzo
Issue date: 11/5/09 Section: Sports
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The women's squad demolished both of their opponents on Saturday with a total of 602 points, limiting Alfred to 336 points and Brockport to only 333 points. The Blue Wave was so impressive in their win that they seem poised to win their third consecutive SUNYAC title in only their second competition of the season.
Junior transfer Kelly Young won both of her diving events, setting a school record with 253.8 points on the one-meter and 254.75 on the three-meter.
"It's pretty exciting for us to be taking those records down this early in the season - it's fantastic," said head coach Paul Dotterweich.
Freshman Meghan Greene and junior Michelle Rodriguez also were standouts, finishing first and second in an exciting 500 freestyle race. The two teammates beat the rest of field by over 30 seconds but a mere 200th of a second separated the pair, who just missed a pool record. In the end Greene won with a time of 5 minutes, 13.89 seconds.
Greene also took the 200 freestyle, while Rodriguez added a first-place finish in the 50 freestyle.
Other winners included freshman Abby Erickson in the 1,000 freestyle, sophomore Jade Plaschka in the 100 fly, junior Jennifer Anthone in the 100 freestyle, freshman Kaitlin Wilcoxen in the 100 breaststroke and sophomore Alex Dockstader who won both the 200 IM and the 100 backstroke.
The men's team also readily defeated its competitors with 526 points, holding Alfred to 475 points and Brockport to 369 points.
The men had five first-place finishers, all of whom were sophomores. Ken Pink led the way, winning the 100 breaststroke and Nate Foley won the 1,000 freestyle, Dan Strothenke took the 50 freestyle and Aaron Wagner and Josh Kaplan won the 200 IM and 100 backstroke, respectively.
Freshmen Jan Dokonal and Chris LaTempio also surprised and impressed with their performances on Saturday, earning the praise of their coach. "They showed me a couple things in the pool that I really didn't expect to see," Dotterweich said.
The team has been training at a very high level, so this weekend unfolded as Dotterweich said he would have expected.
"We were pretty pleased with the performances - our training has been pretty intense these past couple of weeks," Dotterweich, who welcomed the prospect of facing better teams in the future, said. "We're looking forward to some better competition in the next few weeks. Sometimes it's hard to be motivated when your biggest competitor is your teammate."
The teams likely won't see much competition next week when they travel to SUNY Fredonia, but in coming weeks they face SUNY Cortland, Ithaca College and Hamilton College - all much stronger and talented opponents.
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