Jan. 27, 2016

By Evan Carlin

Men’s and women’s swimming and diving participated in the Lake Forest and Lawrence Triangular January 23 in Appleton, Wisconsin, and both teams secured a first-place finish.

The men’s team beat Lawrence by 227 points, 241-14.  The team also pulled out a victory against Lake Forest by a score of 149-139.  The women’s team saw a bit more competition, beating Lawrence, 183-78, in its opening match and Lake Forest by a score of 197-67.

On the men’s side, Daniel Bielski lit up the stat sheet with three first-place finishes in the first 100-yard backstroke, with a time of 54.40.  His 200-yard backstroke finished with a time of 1:59.12, and the 100-yard butterfly with a time of 54.29.

Samuel Bowman and Pete Loftus also contributed to the ‘Hawks first-place finishes. Bowman completed the 1000-yard freestyle with a time of 10:22.92, and Pete Loftus finished the 500-yard freestyle with a time of 5:00.43.

For the women, Margaret Lotzer added to the ’Hawks first- place tally with two first place finishes.  Lotzer won the 1000-yard freestyle with a time of 11:08.01 and the 500-yard freestyle with a time of 5:22.99.  Lotzer finished with a second place 100-yard freestyle, but it was yet another Warhawk that beat her efforts.

Grace Devine finished ahead of Lotzer by .3 seconds with a time of 57.36.  Two other Warhawks, Jaime Kohnke and Jessica James, took first and second in the 100-yard backstroke.  Kohnke finished with a time of 1:02.88, and James took second with a time of 1:03.14.

Head coach Joel Rollings said he was pleased with the men’s and women’s teams efforts.

“We trained hard over break,” Rollings said. “We had close races even with less of a rest time.  They finished strong and they are right where they need to be going into conference.”

Rollings said he was proud of the way his team responded.

“We had a bit more rest in other competition,” Rollings said “This was a triangle meet, so this was essentially getting in the water to race with less rest.  It forced us to learn to race under adversity.”

Junior swimmer, Sarah Arteaga, mentioned the obstacles that the triangle brought about.

“Fatigue and soreness was a big factor, in and out of the water,” Arteaga said. “It was very obvious but we still came out on top in events.  We were really tired and sore from the last month of training, but it is paying off because everything is starting to come together.”

Despite the rigorous schedule of training, the ‘Hawks were successful.

“We had intense yardage in practice, resulting in good times and fast races,” Arteaga said.

The Warhawks will resume their season at home against UW-Eau Claire at 1 p.m. on Jan. 30 in the Williams Center.