Buffalo, N.Y. — “Hope. It’s the only thing stronger than fear,” reads the book the Hunger Games – and the back of Ohio’s Mid-American Conference meet shirt. The Bobcats hoped for the team conference title and at the same time tried to overcome their fear of not meeting everybody’s high expectations in the meet’s 20 events.
After three days of preliminary rounds, consolation finals and championship finals, the Bobcats finished as a runner-up and had to watch Miami celebrating its first MAC title since 2009 by jumping into the pool.
It didn’t help that Ohio broke three school records in the 100-yard backstroke, 200-yard medley relay and 100-yard breaststroke. It didn’t help that all 23 athletes swam season bests this weekend. It didn’t help that Addy Ferguson was the most decorated freshman with four medals and that junior Laurin Williams almost broke her own school record to win the 1650-yard freestyle.
The RedHawks just won a team championship without winning any individual events – a first in the MAC.
“I thought our depth showed up really well this weekend,” Miami coach Dave Jennings said. His team took over first place after the second event and never gave it up after. “Our prelim swimming was very good. In a three-day format, in order to get into scoring position, you have to do it in prelims and I thought our girls did a very good job. That made the difference.”
Coming off a nerve-wrecking weekend, Ohio coach Greg Werner congratulated Jennings, but he would have rather been in latter’s position.
He had plans to jump off the 10-meter diving board if his team would win the MAC title, instead he had to leave the pool deck without climbing the three metal stairs to the highest diving platform. Still, Werner was satisfied with his team’s performance.
“I’m really happy with a second place finish because it was a tough meet for us,” he said. “Things just weren’t clicking or flowing like they were last year and certainly the year before. It was a testament to the team to scrap and battle and come up with that second place finish.”
Over the course of the third day, the Bobcats head to fear to lose their second place to Bowling Green. After 18 out of 20 events were completed, the Falcons suddenly found themselves in second place with 439 points – that’s eight points more than the Bobcats had scored up to this point. It was the meet’s biggest surprise. Not only did Bowling Green come back from a fifth place after the first day, but also from a last place finish last year.
“It was phenomenal,” Bowling Green coach Petra Marten said. “It’s not just the swimming, but for us it was all about changing the culture of the team into what the team has become in the last three years. Going into the meet we weren’t even thinking about third place.”
The Falcons lost their second place to Ohio just an event later to finish in third with 467 points, but the result might have been a different one if Bowling Green had a diving team. Instead the Falcons had to watch the other seven teams competing for a total of 370 points in the 1-meter and 3-meter diving competition.
“I knew we’d be in front of Bowling Green after the diving,” Werner said, although his divers weren’t able to fulfill their ambitious goals.
“We can place four divers in the top eight,” had diving coach Russ Dekker said before the championship started. Instead, however, he had to watch only two divers out of his four divers qualifying for each of the two diving championship finals.
“I wasn’t disappointed about finishing the weekend without any medals. This has been the strongest MAC championship we have ever had,” he said adding that he looks forward to the NCAA Zone competition in two weeks.
Ohio’s diving squad of Haleigh Bartlett, Mary Rose-Hillstrom, Kristin Capcik and Morgan Srail will forego their spring break to work on their dives. Junior Williams will join their practice efforts in the Aquatic Center, after her time of 16:14.60 minutes in the 1650-yard freestyle will be good enough to receive an initiation for the NCAA championships held in Indianapolis in three weeks.
“Usually people don’t swim as fast at the NCAAs as they do at their conference meets,” Williams said. Hopefully – if I stay at my same time – I can (swim into the) top 16.”
The rest of the swimmers will take a break from swimming and have a lot of time to think about this year’s campaign. They gave their best and still fell short of the championship and their goal.
“May the odds ever be in your favor,” reads another Hunger Games quote. It could have been Miami’s T-shirt quote.
- Sam Howard contributed to this article.
am794811@ohiou.edu
