Swim team rides wave of momentum to victory

Head coach Matthew Jabs and the East Carolina University men’s (2-1, 0-0 AAC) and women’s (2-1 0-0 AAC) swimming and diving team splashed their way to a dominating win at home against both the men’s (1-1, 0-0 CAA) and women’s (0-2, 0-0 CAA) swim and dive teams of William & Mary on Saturday.

“Having our first home meet is always good,” Jabs said. “Our fans always show up, this place is awesome (Minges Natatorium), we can’t thank them enough for the energy we get from them. We have pretty high expectations on how we want to perform, and I think we did a pretty good job today of showing up.”

Both the men’s and women’s swim teams split their first two meets of the year beating the men’s (0-2, 0-0 CUSA) and women’s teams (1-1, 0-0 CUSA) of Old Dominion University in week one, while losing in a tough matchup with both the men (1-0, 0-0 ACC) and women (1-0, 0-0 ACC) of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in week two. The men’s team took down the Monarchs 198-92, and lost to the Tar Heels 143-157. The women on the other hand went and got a 188-107 against ODU, and lost to UNC 115-170.

Despite splitting the first two meets, both squads earned a spot in the collegeswimming.com Division 1 team rankings. The men’s team ranks No. 15 and the women’s team ranks No. 25 in the country. Both teams ranked the highest in the American Athletic Conference going into Saturday and after sweeping William & Mary they can possibly move up in the rankings this week.

“We’re really excited about that,” Jabs said. “It’s a dual meet ranking so it’s based on our dual meet performances and we’ve had a couple so far that we’re pretty proud of in how we swam and today (Saturday) will add to that. Overall, it’s good for the program and we’re excited for that.”

The Pirates sailed ahead of the Tribe early and never looked back in the meet. There were 12 races overall that were decided by less than a second that had fans and spectators on the edge of their seats.

The men’s team had strong performances that helped them win 10-of-14 individual events and 176-101 at the end of the meet. They looked to set the tone early and they did just that in the 200-yard medley relay. The relay team of sophomore swimmers Marek Osina, Lyubomir Epitropov, James Ward and senior swimmer Gustavo Santos managed to set a pool record in that race with a time of edging out William & Mary by 0.25 seconds (1:30.51 to 1:30.76).

Osina went on to win the 200-yard backstroke and 200-yard individual medley races on Saturday. In the backstroke race Osina finished ahead of second place finisher senior Pirate swimmer Magnus Andersen by 2.39 seconds (1:48.43 to 1:51.04). In the individual medley race, Osina had a tough race with Tribe senior swimmer Ben Skopic that resulted in a nail-biting finish that saw Osina prevail by .08 seconds (1:52.53 to 1:52.61).

Senior swimmer Blaz Demsar added two first place finishes on the men’s team that were both decided by less than 1.6 seconds each. In the 200-yard freestyle, Demsar finished ahead of ECU sophomore swimmer Pietro Nannucci by 1.03 seconds (1:40.91 to 1:41.94). In the 500-yard freestyle race, Demsar took down fellow senior swimmer Grega Popovic by 1.58 seconds to get the win (4:38.15 to 4:39.73).

Those were the only two Pirates on the men’s side that earned multiple first place victories as other teammates added six more individual wins total. Demsar, Santos, Ward and freshman swimmer Pedro Gueiros teamed up at the end of the meet to set a Minges Natatorium record in the 400-yard freestyle relay with a time of 3:02.60 edging out the Tribe (3:03.23) by .63 seconds.

The women’s team saw sophomore swimmer Shannon Stott, graduate swimmer Lily West, freshman swimmers Jodi Ogle and Adela Vavrinova record multiple first-place finishes against William & Mary to lead ECU to a 173.5 to 99.5 win at home.

Stott took first in both the 100-yard and 200-yard butterfly races with times of 56.42 and 2:02.81 respectively edging out Pirate junior swimmer Lise-Lotte Bentin in the 100 by .66 seconds. West finished first in the 100-yard breaststroke race with a time of 1:05.79 defeating Tribe freshman swimmer Annie Tuttle (1:06.42) by .63 seconds.

Ogle managed to sweep both the 100-yard and 200-yard backstroke races. Ogle defeated fellow ECU freshman swimmer Rachel Strickland in the 100-yard race by 1.60 seconds (57.46 seconds to 59.06 seconds). In the 200-yard race, Ogle took over from the very beginning and took first place by almost five seconds over William & Mary junior swimmer Tara Tiernan (2:02.58 to 2:07.56). Vavrinova took first place in the 100-yard freestyle and 200-yard individual medley races with times of 51.80 and 2:04.53 respectively.

Both teams combined to win 24-of-32 events on the day winning 75% of the events on the day. Four of those wins included a clean sweep in both the 1-meter and 3-meter diving events from positions one to three as ECU had three divers compete and none from William & Mary’s side.

“A lot of respect to William & Mary,” Jabs said. “They’re a championship level program. For us to come in and swim the way that we did, we’re pretty happy about that.”

After seeing the teams ranked as well as picking up strong wins this past Saturday, Jabs and the teams know that they can still get better moving forward as winning the conference championship is the goal at the end of the season.

“We can always get better,” Jabs said. “We by no means have arrived. We’ve got to continue to come in everyday with a mindset of we’re going to get better today, work on the little details of our races, turns, pacing, those sorts of things but that’s a normal thing for the season that we try to work on each and every single day.”

Both teams look to use home pool advantage this upcoming weekend in Minges Natatorium when it will welcome the men’s and women’s teams of Catawba College (0-0, 0-0 SAC) and Lenoir-Rhyne University who has a record of 1-0, and 0-0 SAC with the men, and a record of 1-1, 0-0 SAC on Saturday to compete in a swimming only tri-meet. The meet is set to begin at 1 p.m.