Feb. 25, 2015 By Evan Carlin
The men’s and women’s swimming and diving team finished within the top five teams on Feb. 19 through Feb. 21 at the WIAC championship in Brown Deer, Wisconsin.
The men finished out the weekend of competition in third place out of five teams, while the women claimed the runner-up spot out of five.
The women collected their best finish in program history, beating the third-place UW-Stevens Point by 130 points. Following the meet, head coach Joel Rollings was named the WIAC Coach of the Year for the first time as the women’s head coach. He has also garnered the award three other times as the men’s coach.
Rollings was pleased with the efforts showed by his team this past weekend.
“I’m most proud of how the team came together over the season, and the amount of support we had from alumni and parents,” Rollings said.
The Warhawk support had a lot to cheer about during competition, as four women placed first in their respective events.
Senior Amy Spaay and freshman Michaela Matthys gathered sweeps in the breaststroke and butterfly.
Junior Sierra Becker defended her title in the 1-meter dive, setting a school record score of 457.40. Senior Kayla Martin completed her first career individual championship with a time of 17:24.26 in the 1650-yard freestyle.
Despite the success, Rollings still has goals for the remainder of the season.
“The women’s goals is to have our 400 medley relay and 200 medley relays qualify for nationals as well as Michaela Matthys, Kayla Martin, Sierra Becker, Kelsey Kohlbeck, and Steph Haebig to join Amy Spaay at nationals.
“For the rest of the team, to go to class, get above a 3.4 GPA, and enjoy everything they accomplished,” Rollings said.
On the men’s side, Josh Kanute reached his second individual championship of the week and third of his career in the 200-yard freestyle. Four other men swimmers also managed to place for UW-Whitewater in the 200 freestyle.
Captain Joe Devroy added more overall points for the ’Hawks in his individual races. He placed second in the 200 individual medley and first in the 100-yard backstroke. He also defended his title in the 200-yard backstroke with a time of 49.84; he now holds the conference record in that event.
Devroy expressed his emotion for his team’s efforts against the other schools.
“The toughest competition was UW-Lacrosse,” Devroy said. “It was slightly heartbreaking to take third by four points, but knowing that we have the tools to surpass them in the upcoming year, makes me extremely happy and excited. We truly did out-swim the Eagles and having some key players back next year will be awesome for the team. I believe we can take second or even possibly first next season.”
The ’Hawks women’s team will be continuing their season in regional competition on Feb. 27 and Feb. 28.
“It may be national championships in mid March or conference may have been it,” Devroy said. “The goals all season had always been to place as high as we could in the conference.”
Regardless of the outcome, he and his teammates are extremely proud with how they finished both on the men’s and women’s side.
