West Virginia has a higher undergraduate enrollment, a larger endowment and a bigger stadium than Ohio, but not a better swimming team – at least for this season.
With a 165-135 win against West Virginia, the Bobcats diminished the Mountaineers’ party mood on its senior day.
The odds weren’t in the Bobcats’ favor going into the meet, as the Mountaineers were ranked higher in 14 out of 16 events and the Mountaineers expected a huge home crowd.
“The crowd was very enthusiastic,” Ohio coach Greg Werner said. “They even had a canon set up and a big mountaineer just like in that ESPN commercial.”
But neither the statistics nor the crowd were able to help the Mountaineers. The Mountaineers’ seniors will end their college careers without a win against the Bobcats and suffer their third loss in three years.
“I told the team to believe in ourselves,” Werner said.
Ohio did exactly that in the first event of the day, as Rachel Stearns, Tori Bagan, Addy Ferguson and Lauren Funk defeated the Mountaineers in the 400-yard medley with a time of 3:51.41 minutes. Werner once again created a relay team that had never swum together in this race all season long, because Stearns had been out with an injury since the Patriot Invitational in November.
With a second-place finish in the 100-yard backstroke and 200-yard backstroke and a fourth place in the 200-yard IM, Stearns immediately showed how important she is to the Bobcats, scoring 10 points individually.
“She certainly hasn’t matched the times like she did last year,” Werner said. “But I think we will see a lot more of her towards the championships.”
After the opening relay win, West Virginia’s all-Americans honorable mentions took over. Rachael Burnett, 11th at the 1650-yard freestyle NCAA championships last year, set a new pool record with a time of 16:59.32 minutes, narrowly defeating junior Laurin Williams in 17:00.57 minutes.
“Stroke for stroke they were very close to each other,” Werner said. “Rachael only pulled away for the last three or four arm strokes. But beating Rachael in the mile on her senior day would have been amazing and Williams came quite close to that.”
Burnett also went on to win the 100-yard freestyle and the 500-yard freestyle, in which she again defeated Williams.
Mandie Nugent won the 200-yard freestyle and 200-yard butterfly — but none of it mattered.
Whenever West Virginia had their outstanding swimmers perform and win, the Bobcats — except for once — always had at least two swimmers finishing in the top four and were able to win eight out of 16 events.
“Depth played a huge role today,” Werner said.
Still, the difference once again was the divers. Although the first competition in the 3-meter dive didn’t go as planned, with West Virginia’s sophomore Haily VandePoel defeating the Bobcats at this height for the first time since the beginning of December, the divers swept the 1-meter dive with sophomore Morgan Srail winning the event.
“They were not happy with the 3-meter diving,” Werner said. “They were hoping to dominate it. But sweeping them in the 1-meter dive was a great recovery.”
Maybe West Virginia will outscore Ohio next year, but for now the Bobcats stay undefeated in 2013.
am794811@ohiou.edu
