All four days, Rachel Komisarz-Baugh looked past the score and overall standings and focused on how well the girls were doing in their events. With several personal best records broken and one swimmer getting swimmer of the meet, scoring had little value to Ohio.
Ohio finished sixth of eight at the Mid-American Conference Championships, but that number was irrelevant to swimming coach Rachel Komisarz-Baugh.
Throughout the meet, Komisarz-Baugh harped on one number that was significant to her: the final time.
“I really tried not to focus too much on the points and just focused on the times,” she said.
And after day one, scoring looked like a priority because her team had taken the fourth place spot overall. Scoring was playing a factor in the Bobcats performance.
However, day two was not as strong as any of the other days of the meet, because Komisarz-Baugh looked to be strategically saving her best swimmers for the events taking place on the last couple of days.
And, as expected, days three and four were the strongest days of the meet for her team. The solid performance was not only proved in the overall scoring, but also each individual swimmer.
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Addison Ferguson, a junior, was the center of attention on Friday night when she took first place in the 100-yard butterfly event and the 100-yard backstroke. She set a personal-best time in both events.
She then swam the 400-yard medley relay and her team, consisting of her, Laura Dawson, Carrie Dukes, and Tori Bagan, placed second at 3:39.99 — only one second behind Akron.
Komisarz-Baugh was not surprised by the success of the relay squad.
“The relays are really starting to come together,” she said. “Everybody was able to pull through and do a really good time.
“We switched it around a little bit, and still had great results.”
But the high praises didn’t end there.
Laura Dawson then carried the momentum that Ferguson started Friday night into the finals on Saturday, which ultimately led to her claiming the MAC swimmer of the meet. Both her and Ferguson were named to the All-MAC first team.
“That was a huge award for the program and for Laura,” Komisarz-Baugh said. “We were really excited about that.”
Dawson too competed in two individual events Saturday night and took first place in both, as well as also breaking her personal best time in each event.
Thus, Komisarz-Baugh was nothing but satisfied with Ferguson and Dawson’s performances.
“We were going in with the expectation that they would each win two events,” she said.
So at the conclusion of day four’s events at the conference championships, looking back, a sixth-place finish isn’t one to celebrate too highly of.
But Komisarz-Baugh is overlooking that and focusing on the fact that eight of the eleven girls who swam Thursday night broke personal records.
She is looking at how well Ferguson and Dawson swam and what the means for the swimming program moving forward. That is the significance of this meet.
“They swam significantly better than they did last year,” she said. “We did score more points (than last year), and that is something that you have to look at as far as the progress of this team.”
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