March hasn’t been hasn’t been a good month for the Ohio Bobcats. First the men’s basketball team lost the Mid-American Conference title game to Akron and fell in the first round of the National Invitation Tournament against Denver. The baseball team also went on an eight-game losing streak.
Now, the March madness has hit the swimming team.
Junior Laurin Williams finished 36th in the 1650 freestyle at the NCAA Championships with a time of 16:29.08 minutes — 15 seconds off her season best — and didn’t even come close to her declared goal of bettering last year’s No. 23 finish.
“We’re not happy about the outcome,” Ohio coach Greg Werner said after the three-day event in Indianapolis. “We had higher expectations.”
All season long Williams’ swims went according to plan. She never placed lower than second in the 500-yard freestyle, she received her first individual Mid-American Conference title in the 1650-yard freestyle and qualified for the NCAA Championships in both events. Her season was perfect.
Then the NCAA Championships came around.
Werner had done everything in the three weeks after the MAC Championship in Buffalo to prepare his standout athlete for the national stage.
He increased her practice yards again after her first taper. Williams, in the meantime, gave up her spring break to better her performance. Both were confident Williams would do fare than last year.
Instead Werner had to watch how many swimmers passed Williams for the first time this season.
Two days earlier, it seemed as if Williams’s weekend could turn out just the way it was planned, as she finished 51st in the 500-yard freestyle in a time of 4:48.58 minutes to improve her 62nd seed.
“It was two seconds faster than last year (at the NCAA Championships), and it was her best cumulative swim,” Werner said. “We were really excited about it and were confident about Saturday.”
The next morning Williams woke up with a stomach virus.
“Every time she ate, her stomach hurt,” Werner said. “The confidence we had was gone.”
It was that confidence that was needed to swim against the nation’s best in a year in which the longest distance event on the collegiate level was much faster than last year’s.
If Williams had swum last year’s time of 16:24.44 minutes, she wouldn’t have ended up in 23rd again but in 31st.
“In our conference the distance races were a little bit slower and at the national meet they were faster,” Werner said.
He doesn’t, however, want to blame it on those two factors. Rather, he looks into what he could change in his training schedule.
“I think we were in a good spot and I think we prepared properly,” Werner said. “We just have to begin two days later with her rest or two days earlier. If she would swim the same event tomorrow or in two days she would do much better.”
Werner and Williams have one more chance to figure out the proper taper schedule — next year is her senior year.
am794811@ohiou.edu
