On Nov.9 Milligan’s men’s and women’s swim teams held their first home meet of the season in the Steve Lacy Fieldhouse against WVU Tech. Both Milligan’s men’s and women’s teams won the meet by a large margin with the women winning 147-28 and men 148-81. Not only did the buffs comfortably win the meet, but there were also several pool records broken and provisional national qualifying marks hit.
Junior Peter Gilbert broke a 10-year-old pool record in the 1500 freestyle and also earned a provisional qualifying mark for nationals. The other pool records set during the meet came from freshman Robert Adam in the 100 breaststroke, he also earned a provisional qualifying mark with his time.
“It felt like a practice,” Gilbert said. “We haven’t had very many meets at home, so usually, the racing at home is during certain practices. There is definitely more support for us at home, as some students just dropped by to see what was happening. There were a lot of pool records set, but as I said earlier, we didn’t have a lot of home meets, so not a lot of opportunities were available to break them.”
Eight other Buffs earned provisional qualifying marks, meaning, they have the opportunity to race at the national meet, depending on the number of swimmers who hit the automatic qualification mark.
The Milligan swimmers who earned provisional marks in the home meet include Mary Grace Bitting in the 200 freestyle, 50 freestyle and 100 butterfly; Paxson Smith in the 100 backstroke and 50 freestyle; Teagan Jose in the 100 breaststroke; Madison Akbari in the 50 freestyle; Caleb Fry in the 50 freestyle and 100 freestyle; Robert Adam in the 200 breaststroke and 400 individual medley; Gellert Szedalk in the 400 freestyle and Sergio Tudor in the 100 butterfly. Gilbert also provisionally qualified in the 100 backstroke, 50 freestyle and 100 butterfly.
“This team has improved significantly in the last few years, and it only becomes better and better,” said Bitting. “I would attribute this continued improvement and success to our head coach, Spencer Scarth. He is a strong, faithful leader and extremely knowledgeable, dedicated, and devoted to the sport.”
The Buffs will be back in action Nov. 20-22 at the Gamecock Invite hosted by the University of South Carolina, where they will compete against top-notch competition.
“Our next meet is the most important non-champ meet we have this year, and our team has a good idea of what to expect, having attended this meet last season,” Scarth said. “It is a fast meet, to be sure, with teams in attendance, including NCAA Division I programs UNC, USC, ECU, Vanderbilt, UNF, division two program Carson Newman, and last year’s men’s champion Tampa. This will give us great prep for later down the road at nationals when we face swimmers that aren’t nearly as fast as these ones, and I’d expect we will have quite a few more swimmers solidify their spot for nationals and reset some school records.”Click HERE to view results from the meet.
photo credit Spencer Hall
by McKenzie Fitzgerald