'Glitch on the radar' for men's swimming

Men's swim coach Bud Termin summed it up the best he could after a 90-point loss last Thursday: "It just was one of those days."

There was no other way to say it for Buffalo following the 142-52 defeat at the hands of St. Bonaventure at the Bonnies' Reilly Center Pool.

"It's just one of those things," Termin said. "St. Bonaventure was really nothing special."

The non-conference loss now drops the Buffalo swimming and diving squad down to an overall record of 2-4, while the Bonnies managed to improve to 5-4.

"We just didn't do our times," Termin said. "If we would have done our times, it would have been a much different meet."

The Bonnies cruised through the meet, winning all but one event. While the Buffalo team underachieved as a whole, a few swimmers still managed to perform at a high level.

Bulls' junior swimmer Luke Adams came up with the only first-place finish in the meet. Winning the 200-yard backstroke, Adams has yet to be defeated this season in the event. Adams also grabbed a second place-finish in the 1,000-yard freestyle with a time of 9:47.26. His performance comes just days after Adams was awarded both the Mid-American Conference Swimmer of the Week and MAC Scholar-Athlete of the Week.

Senior swimmer Jeff Hurst hit the wall just one-hundredth of a second behind first-place St. Bonaventure swimmer Scott Jordan in the 200-yard individual medley event, as Jordan's prints hit at 1:58.73.

Also finishing second were Bulls' swimmers Kevin Gatley and sophomore Leaondro Souza. Gatley finished the 200-yard freestyle in 1:45.73 while Souza completed the 200-yard breaststroke in 2:20.79.

During the team's 400-yard freestyle relay comprised of Adams, Gatley, freshman Kevin Schuster, and Dave Harris, the Bulls came close to victory but instead finished second clocking in at 3:15.72.

Despite the defeat, Termin is not at all upset with how the season is going.

"We've had kids do lifetime bests in every meet so far this season except for last night, but there's times in every season where the group is off a little bit. To go through a season perfect is hard to do," Termin said.

So far, the Bulls have been swimming very well, with over 40 lifetime bests already achieved this season. Termin maintains that the team is not discouraged by the latest results and will continue to swim well.

"You can lose a meet and come out of it feeling okay because, well, maybe you lost but the performances were great and the other team you went against just did it better," Termin said.

After the loss, the team plans to look ahead with no mind for the past. Describing the loss as merely a "glitch on the radar" and "not the trend," Termin and the team are more than willing to put the meet behind them and move on.

"The group is highly motivated," Termin said. "It was just Thursday evening and I don't know that anybody could put their finger on the performances, but you just move on."

The Bulls will certainly need to keep that motivation, as its final meets will all be on the road. The Bulls will face the league-leading Eastern Michigan Eagles (6-1, 3-0 MAC) on Feb. 4.