By Emily Leclair

Feb. 10, 2016

The UW-Whitewater men and women’s swim and dive teams completed its final conference meet of the regular season on Feb. 6 against UW-La Crosse. The men’s team defeated UW-LC, 122-121, but the women’s team lost,
126-115.

“Even though we didn’t come up on top, we still raced very well and improved from our last meet on small details, like our starts and turns,” junior Grace Devine said.   

The men’s team swept both the 1000-yard freestyle and the 200-yard Individual Medley with junior Josh Kanute taking first place in the 1000-yard freestyle with a time of 10:25.58. Junior Andrew Staszak followed Kanute in second at 10:38.68 and junior Alex Carroll in third with a time of 10:58. 87.

Freshman Chandler Lewis took first in the 200-yard IM with a time of 2:01.36. Freshman Peter Loftus followed in second with a time of 2:01.50, and junior Daniel Bielski finished third at 2:03.32, along with taking second in the 100-yard butterfly with a time of 53.59.

Freshman Jonathan Jaworski and Sam Douglass placed second and third in the 50-yard freestyle, with times of 21.89 and 21.91, respectively, while Jaworski also finished third in the 100-yard freestyle with a time of 48.73, and Douglas placed second in the 100-yard backstroke.

Senior Keefer Kuhl finished in second place in the 3-meter dive with a score of 228.20 and third in the 1-meter dive to finish the men’s day of competition.

“The goal was to go in there, race well against a good team and stay sharp with conference right around the corner,” junior Sam Bowman said.

For the women’s side, freshman Erin Hawker ended the meet with two first-place finishes in the 200-yard IM with a time of 2:13.81 and the 100-yard breastroke with a time of 1:09.18. Junior Sarah Arteaga finished behind Hawker in the 200-yard IM with a time of 2:15.20.

Sophomore Michaela Matthys, with a time of 57.39, broke UW-La Crosse’s pool record in the 100-yard butterfly, and she also took second in the 50-yard freestyle.

In the 200-yard freestyle, juniors Margaret Lotzer and Grace Devine placed second and third, respectively, with Devine finishing just one second behind Lotzer. Lotzer also took first in the 500-yard freestyle, followed by Devine in second.

Senior Sierra Becker had a first-place finish in the 1-meter dive with a score of 258.35, and a fourth place finish in the 3-meter dive with a score of 207.35 to end the women’s day of competition.

“We just have about a week and a half before we leave for our conference championship meet, so we are going to start resting down even more,” Devine said. “We cut yardage and overall intensity down, and we start to focus on the details of our races and short, fast sprints.”

The ’Hawks will compete in the WIAC Championship on Feb. 18-20 in Brown Deer, Wisconsin where it will compete against UW-La Crosse, UW-Eau Claire, UW-Oshkosh and UW-Stevens Point. UW-SP was the ’Hawks only conference loss this season, so the team looks forward to facing the Pointers again.

“They’re a great team that crushed us earlier in the season, but we have come a long way since that loss,” Bowman said. “We know we can give them a run at conference.”