Both the men and women’s swimming and diving teams paddled their way to the podium with victories in their home opener against Illinois Institute of Technology on Saturday, Nov. 16. Not only did they manage to drown out the competition, but they also broke a couple of records in the process.
The women finished the meet with a 267-6 victory, while the men lapped Illinois Institute of Technology 241-47
Most Pioneer swimmers also shaved time from their previous races.
“The team we swam against wasn’t really big. When that happens it’s important to find something to race against—be that a clock, be that yourself, be that your teammate,” said Sara Hannemann ’14. “It’s harder to find competition when you’re not swimming against a larger team, but I think the team in general really stepped up and really raced, even though we didn’t necessarily have opponents surrounding us.”
This is following an equally impressive meet on Saturday, Nov. 9 in which Ben Weideman ’15 gained a quadruple win—finishing first in all four events he competed in—against Luther College, while also being named the Midwest Conference Men’s Swimming and Diving Performer of the Week.
Being early in the season, the teams are still adjusting to the addition of new swimmers—26 first-years on the men’s and women’s teams collectively—as well as the loss of graduated seniors.
“We have quite a few young, excited people, which is fun from a coaching standpoint, but I think it’s [also] fun for the team, when they have new people coming in,” said men’s and women’s head swimming coach Erin Hurley.
One first-year in particular has joined the team with a splash. Beth Tsuha ’17 earned four victories last meet, following her selection as Midwest Conference Performer of the Week the week before.
“It was a really positive meet. We were all cheering for each other and getting behind each lane. A lot of people swam really well and [had] good times … It’s always exciting to see people drop time, especially this early in the season—usually that doesn’t happen until January or February,” Hannemann said.
If this meet is any indication of how the season will be, Grinnell is in for waves of good news. Both teams have been putting in hard work, and it clearly is paying off as they are keeping their heads way above water.
“Everyone has really been working hard, in and out of the pool … It’s always fun to see teammates turn into friends and, as a captain this year, that’s one of my goals, too—to make sure everyone has a good time swimming and I want everyone to leave the team being glad that they decided to be on the team,” Hannemann said.
In the diving aspect of the meet, Daniel Goldstein ’16 managed to reach new heights or rather, new depths last weekend, breaking both school and pool records in diving. His score of 324.45 not only beat the previous record of 319.72, which he set last year, but also earned him one of the two needed NCAA-regional qualifying marks he needs in order to compete in Regionals later in the season.
With a few more meets to go in the semester, he’s hoping to not falter in his progress.
“We’ve got a couple more meets this semester. I’m hoping to keep that steady. Then we have our train[ing] trip in Florida over winter break, [during] which I’ll probably improve a lot more,” Goldstein said.
Goldstein hopes to win the Midwest Conference Diving Championship this year.
“I got second place last year on both boards, but the person that beat me was a senior last year,” Goldstein said.
In addition to winning the MWC Diving Championship, Goldstein hopes to continue to beat both Grinnell and pool records.
“I’m hoping to get all of them at some point. I have four out of the eight on the record board. A couple of them are set by the person that beat me [at Conference] last year,” Goldstein said.
Like Goldstein, both teams also have high expectations for the rest of the season.
“I don’t want to get ahead of ourselves. We have plenty of work to do, but I think we are at a good place right now,” Hurley said.
The Pioneers will be able to take advantage of home pool advantage for their next two meets. On Saturday, Nov. 23 at 10 a.m. they face Loras College and on the weekend of Dec. 6, 10 schools come to Grinnell as the Pioneers host the Pioneer Classic.
