Men's Swimmimg Beats OWU By Three Points

Take the Plunge: Junior Molly Benson practices her form. (photo by Alyssa Tomasi)

The Oberlin swimming and diving team once again cranked out some outstanding performances, this time at Ohio Wesleyan on Nov. 11. The men won the meet by a narrow margin of three points, and although the women came up short overall, there were several personal bests and two varsity records broken.

The men were neck and neck with the Bishops the whole meet. There were several close races that were key to the win. Knowing they probably wouldn't win the 200 medley relay, the Yeomen saved their strength for later events.

"We didn't think we could win the medley, so we blew off the medley and went for the free relay instead," Head Coach Dick Michaels said.

Although Ohio Wesleyan won the first event, senior John Limouze easily won the next event, the 100 free, by over a minute.

Next in the 200 free, first-year Burt Betchart beat one of Ohio Wesleyan's top swimmers, senior K.C. Fusaro, by three seconds.

First-year Chuck Treatman swam a difficult 200 IM, trailing the entire race and only pulling ahead in the last two strokes.

Another tight race featured Limouze against Ohio Wesleyan's first-year Joseph Lankford, who is a tremendous 6'4". The Yeomen hoped that he would fade off in the end to give Limouze the easy win, but no such thing happened. Lankford stuck it out to the end, and Limouze won by a mere .04 seconds.

Betchart produced another lifetime best of 49.24 in the 100 free blowing the opposition out of the water by over a second.

What look liked a clear win in the 500 free almost went bad as Ohio Wesleyan's Fusaro pulled ahead of Limouze well into the race, but Limouze finished strong to win.

All these races were crucial to the win because without any one of them the Yeomen would have lost the meet. It all came down to the last event, the 200 freestyle relay. Ohio Wesleyan had taken first and second in the 50 free. It was clear it wasn't going to be an easy race.

"It looked like we were in trouble," Michaels said.

Fortunately for Oberlin, Ohio Wesleyan's Lankford had been used up and they had to swim without him. Despite fast splits from the whole team, the race was finally won by Betchart, who swam an excellent anchor leg.

"We thought we had a chance to win if everything went right," Michaels said. "And as luck had it everything did go right."

The women's team didn't fare so well overall but they did put up some excellent individual performances.

Junior Celeste Mercer set two Oberlin varsity records. The first was in the 100 fly. The fly is not Mercer's usual stroke, and this was actually the first time she swam it in a competition since she was eight years old. She beat the 1984 Oberlin record by almost three seconds with a time of 1:00.25. In the 100 breast, Mercer broke the 1993 record by .01 seconds. She now holds the Oberlin record in all four 100 meter strokes. Both records were set within an hour.

Mercer started swimming the fly again as practice since she will probably compete in it at nationals this year, and is looking to be competitive.

First-year Nikki Middaugh had a season best in the 200 IM. Sophomore Rani Khan also set a new season best for herself in both the 200 free and the 500 free. First-year Julia Irwin had a lifetime best in the 50 breast leg of the 200 medley relay.

"On paper, our women's team is better than our men's team," Michaels said, "because it is so much bigger and deeper."

However, most schools in the conference have good women's teams and a few have small men's teams like Oberlin. Unfortunately for Oberlin, most of the teams they will be facing for the rest of the season have strong men's and women's teams. They face Wittenberg at home Saturday at 1 p.m.