All of the Mid-American Conference's best swimmers were in attendance this weekend, as Buffalo hosted the women's swimming and diving championships from Feb. 20-23.
Ohio swam away with first place, totaling 679.5 points. Toledo was the only other team able to cross the 600-point threshold, finishing with a total of 605.5 points. Eastern Michigan took third with 575 points, followed by Miami with 538, Buffalo with 341, Bowling Green with 333.5, and Akron with 246 points. Ball State finished last with 175.5 points.
After finishing in eighth place each of the last two years, Buffalo showed a vast improvement this season, finishing in fifth place at the championships. Two years ago, the Bulls scored 180.5 points and last year they scored just 200 points. The Bulls made a huge leap to 341 points at the championships this season.
"The biggest difference from this year to last year was their attitudes, their commitment, being more goal oriented and just wanting to be better. A lot of it just comes down to attitudes and believing in what we're doing here," said Bulls head coach Andy Bashor.
Buffalo placed in seven of the 20 events, taking home one gold medal. The Bulls 200-yard medley relay crew consisting of sophomore Andrea Lehner swimming backstroke, sophomore Ashley Schaffert swimming breaststroke, sophomore Samantha Eckert in the butterfly, and sophomore Samantha Palma swimming free style, placed fourth overall. Taking fifth was Buffalo's 800-yard freestyle relay team with a time of 7:35.05. The relay swimmers were Lehner, freshman Renae Sharkey, freshman Ashley Olsen and freshman Jordan Deren.
Buffalo's 400-freestyle relay also placed fifth overall with a time of 3:29.43. The relay included Lehner, Palma, freshman Catherine Scharf and freshman Jessie Koltz. In the 200-yard freestyle relay, Koltz, Palma, Scharf and senior Meghan Lafferty placed fourth with a time of 1:34.52.
In the 50-yard freestyle, Palma swam the two laps in 23.77 seconds placing seventh and set a lifetime-best in the preliminaries with a time of 23.64 seconds. In the 1650-yard freestyle, freshman Jordan Deren placed sixth overall with a lifetime-best of 17:18.97.
Lehner took home the only first place finish for Buffalo, finishing the 100-yard backstroke with a time of 55.74 seconds. Junior Rachel Sorg finished right behind her in seventh place with a time of 57.47 seconds. In addition to her first place, Lehner placed second in the 500-yard freestyle with a time of 4:47.46. Lehner became Buffalo's first swimmer to win a MAC swim title since 2005.
Buffalo's sophomore diver, Meili Carpenter, placed second in the three-meter event, she also finished fifth in the one-meter event. Both events helped her to achieve her second all-MAC second team status.
"I think we did great, we did really well from top to bottom as a team I was very pleased, very pleased on how we did," Bashor said. "I guess what I'm most proud of is just how the girls fought and battled and kept swimming better and better as the weekend went along."
Bashor credits the team's success during the championships to their increase in confidence stemming from their MAC meet wins.
"What really helped us this year with building confidence was winning some MAC dual meets. We beat Ball State, then we beat Akron and Bowling Green," Bashor said. "That's the first time we've beaten anyone in three years in the MAC and I think that has given us the confidence to come to this meet and to do the job that we did."
The team's captains, senior Meghan Lafferty and senior Catherine Rowan, helped to lead and motivate the team this season. In addition, Bashor mentioned that both the freshman and sophomore class helped to move the Bulls along as well.
"I think those guys really stepped up because we are graduating four seniors and we only have two juniors...one's a diver and one's a swimmer, so we're a very young team," Bashor said.
Over the course of Wednesday to Saturday many records were broken, which consisted of 11 MAC records, 13 meet records and 16 pool records. Madeleine Pilchard from Eastern Michigan was named MAC Swimmer of the Year and Toledo's Megan McKinley was named Diver of the Year. Swim Coach of the Year honors went to Ohio's coach Greg and the Diving Coach of the Year was given to Toledo's Marie Canarecci.
The Bulls will next compete in the NCAA Zone A Diving Championships from March 14-16. The event will be held at the Alumni Arena Nanatorium.
Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
