GEORGETOWN, Texas – The Wayland Baptist swimming and diving team traveled to Georgetown to take on Southwestern University, a proven program. The Pioneers didn't get a win Saturday, but they did get some valuable experience heading into their two big meets at the end of the semester.
"Anytime you get to swim against a team like Southwestern and be able to compete, it's a good thing," head coach Alyson Hannan said. "We got some good experience and we were able to get ready for our next meet at the same time."
Both of Wayland's teams competed well Saturday, but ultimately the men's team lost to Southwestern, 183-84, while the women fell, 188-60.
The Pioneer men won the 200-yard medley relay, turning in a time of 1:38.95, narrowly beating out Southwestern by 18 hundredths of a second.
Josiah Morales,
Bjoern Globke,
Hugo Gallegos, and
Gabriel Phillips swam on Wayland's winning relay.
Globke,
Ethan Nicholson and Morales picked up individual wins for the Pioneers. Globke won the breaststroke in just over one minute (1:00.60), while Nicholson won the 1,000-yard freestyle in 10 minutes, 37.82 seconds. Morales won both the 100 and 200-yard fly in 52.17 seconds and one minute, 59.24 seconds, respectively.
In addition to Nicholson and Morales' wins, Hannan was pleased with their performances in the individual medley.
"Ethan did phenomenal job in 100 and 200 individual medley, and Brandon swam really well in 200 IM. Brandon just missed cut in the 200, but he got behind early and made a nice come back. It was really exciting to watch.
For the women,
Vianney Trujillo and Miley Oberg had individual wins. Vianney won the 100 and 200-yard breaststroke, finishing in one minute, 12.79 seconds in the 100 and two minutes, 38.37 seconds in the 200. Oberg won the 200-yard freestyle with a time of five minutes, 26.52 seconds.
Overall, Hannan thought the Pioneers did well, despite not winning the dual.
"We've been training a lot differently than how this dual was set up, but I still thought we did alright," Hannan said. "We've been focusing a lot more on distance, and with the travel and us not being used to this kind of meet we were a little off today."
Hannan also said that the facility that they were competing at Saturday was a lot different than what her kids are used to seeing.
"This pool was a lot different than any pool we've been in. It's an older facility, so the depth of pool and distance from the deck to the blocks was a lot further. We had to jump out towards pool and kind of sail out to the water."
The Pioneers jump back in the pool Nov. 15 in a tri-meet against UT-Permian Basin and St. Gregory's in Midland.
