Once in a Lifetime Meet for Empire 8 Swimming

alfred-watershot

By James Sica, Swimming World College Intern

Ask any collegiate swimmer, and they’ll likely be able to recount that dual meet from their college career. It’s usually a meet that they shouldn’t have won. An epic meet where each team traded wins back and forth until it culminated in a showdown during the final relay. Win the last event, win the meet.

There is very little that can parallel the excitement, sense of unity, and sheer noise that a team can have as they watch their teammates get that final win that puts their team on top. A swimmer is lucky to have one of these meets during their four years of collegiate swimming, and if they are fortunate enough to experience it, you can bet they will remember it for the rest of their lives.

This weekend, Empire 8 Swimming’s Alfred University men had the strange luck of having two such contests back to back. On Friday, they took on Division II LeMoyne College on the road, punctuating a close meet with a 1-2 sweep of the 200 free relay to win by a single point (119-118). On Saturday, they came back to defeat conference rival Hartwick College at home by 2 points (145-143), again having the meet come down to the last relay (which they won by one hundredth of a second).

The Alfred University Saxons are one of the few teams in the Empire 8 that schedule back-to-back dual meets, a grueling setup that can be mentally and physically draining. However, Head Coach Brian Striker explains that this is one of the best ways to replicate what a team will experience at their conference meet. The end of year has always been the focus, he says, and as the Empire 8 becomes more competitive he is always looking for ways to provide his teams with an extra edge going into the end of the year.

So what made these meets so special? Performances like senior Dave Coombes 1:43.25 touch-out against Miles Blaney (1:43.38), which was a startling five second drop from his win in the same event the day earlier against LeMoyne (1:48.38).

I’ll repeat that again: Alfred senior Dave Coombes dropped 5 seconds in one day to take down one of the best 200 freestylers in his conference by thirteen one-hundredths of a second. Few swimmers can drop 5 seconds over the course of a season. Coombes did that in about 24 hours. Speaking to his swim, Coach Brian Striker said when Coombes got out of the pool in their first meet against LeMoyne, he said it “hurt pretty bad.”

“I knew he had that quality of swim in him,” Striker said. “But I didn’t think he had it in him at this point of the season.”

Striker explained that they haven’t backed off yardage at all, and are coming to the end of an intense lifting phase. Senior Zac Toth shared that sentiment, explaining that the Saxons are still doing doubles and are very broken down.

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Add in back-to-back dual meets (which include travel), and that context makes Coombes swims even more impressive. And he wasn’t the only one to have remarkable swims for the Saxons this past weekend. There were plenty of great swims to go around, including senior David Luke making up on a body length lead at the opening of both 200 medley relays to touch out both opponents (20.91 and 20.40 splits on Friday and Saturday, respectively).

Senior Zac Toth came back from getting touched-out in the 200 fly to dominate the 100 fly in 52.32, a time he says he couldn’t have done without his teammate Dave Coombes getting him amped up before the race. A group of four freshman all recorded lifetime best splits in the closing 200 freestyle relays, something that just doesn’t happen all that often in collegiate swimming in January.

Despite these impressive performances and huge time drops from his swimmers, Coach Striker explained that ultimately, it’s not the times that matter. Addressing the team after the meets, he said that you can only expect to have these experiences once or twice in your career. And they are experiences that not only build you up, but help to reveal qualities in yourself you may not have known you had.

“[It’s] not about how fast they’re swimming,” he said, “but about building character as they go into taper…building the mental game going into championships.”

Reflecting on what he called a “breathtaking” weekend, senior Zac Toth said it was about every person, whether they were fighting for first or fifth, getting up and racing the person next to them, finding that extra point, and cheering like crazy.

That’s something to remember about this type of nerve-racking, jaw dropping, once in a lifetime (or twice, in this case) meets: it’s about more than the times. It’s about a senior class coming together to lead their team to victory against a conference rival they hadn’t beaten in their four years at their school. It’s about freshmen who start to swim not just for themselves, but for the team.

It’s about realizing how a group of individuals can come together and become so much more than the sum of their parts. The times are merely a result of these great moments, a result of the priceless opportunities presented by our sport. While a time can show us how far we’ve come, it’s the moments that ultimately get us there.

The Saxons will take on Empire 8 team Ithaca College this Saturday at home. The Empire 8 Conference meet begins in four weeks, with the first day of competition on February 18th. Results for Alfred’s two dual meets from this past weekend can be found below:

Alfred University vs. LeMoyne College:

http://gosaxons.com/documents/2015/1/16/Le_Moyne_v_Alfred.htm

Alfred University vs. Hartwick College:

http://gosaxons.com/documents/2015/1/17/SWIM_vs_Hartwick_01_17_15.html

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Cheryl
Cheryl
9 years ago

Awesome

Susan
Susan
9 years ago

Great article, inspiring!

Frank
Frank
9 years ago

Gives me goosebumps!!!!

Kathy
Kathy
9 years ago

Congrats AU Saxons! Great story – I gave it to several people here at AU who aren’t swimmers and it really helped them understand why this set of performances was so amazing.

Windrath
9 years ago

Good article. As one of the coaches for Hartwick College (which lost by 1 point in Saturday’s meet), it was a fun meet to be part of.

4 pool records were set during the meet – all of the records were previously owned by All-American swimmers and set a number of years ago.

Hartwick has always valued diving (sometimes a maligned aspect of swim teams) as an important element of our program. This meets shows why it is important. This year, we have no male divers and Alfred has 2 on both boards which represents a 26-0 advantage. We have to do a better job showing divers why they should attend Hartwick and help us win close meets!

Congrats to Alfred. We always have competitive meets against them. Brian is a class coach and their team are good people and good athletes.

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