“Who doesn’t love to win” is one line in the Marshall University fight song. The Thundering Herd’s swimmers, though, haven’t felt the love of winning against Ohio in years.
Since 2006 the Bobcats have dominated the Thundering Herd by winning all seven meets and look to continue that streak tonight when traveling to Huntington, W.Va., for another dual meet.
Looking at the statistics, Ohio doesn’t have to worry about this meet at all. All seven meets were won by an average of 57 points. In the last two years, Ohio has kept Marshall under 100.
Still, this year everything might change. The Thundering Herd has signed Bill Tramel as head coach this past summer. Tramel is not an unknown name in college swimming.
For eight years he has been a member of the men’s swimming and diving staff at Minnesota, helping them win two Big Ten conference championships in 2005 and 2007.
In his first season as Marshall head coach, Tramel is determined to lead Marshall’s mediocre swimming program to success, after a decent 7-6 season and a fifth place finish at the Conference USA championships.
“I am not coming to Marshall to babysit,” Tramel said in a press release last May, “We’re going to compete for the conference championship.”
Even though Marshall’s current dual meet record is 5-4, Ohio coach Greg Werner anticipates an even matchup.
“Bill is a very experienced coach and he will certainly have an impact on the program,” Werner said. “I will expect a well-prepared, coached program.”
On the other side the Bobcats seem to be in great shape after Werner had structured the winter training differently this year.
“In the last years we had more recovery time out of the water. This year we spend more time in the water during break,” Werner said.
The positive effects of the winter training were already seen in the dual meet against Denison, which the Bobcats won 193-97.
“The mile at Denison was so much easier (than before break),” junior captain Laurin Williams said. “It was much smoother and I had more power.”
By moving to a normal practice schedule again and increasing the resting time compared to the winter break, the Bobcats are expected to do even better time-wise than they did against Denison.
Still, Werner says this will not be an easy meet.
“Some swimmers have never been to Marshall. They have never seen the pool and the diving boards,” he said. “When going on the road you never know what will happen.”
am794811@ohiou.edu
