| Swim team places third in season opener at UM |
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| Written by Gary Black | |
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Quick, what is the best sports team at the University of Missouri-Rolla? If you said football you may get literally maimed by the truth smacking you in the face. The answer is our swimming team. Last Saturday, Oct. 7 the UMR swim team competed in Columbia. The only teams to beat them in the overall were Mizzou and the Division II National Champions Drury. The list of highlights from this meet is long and may not even be able to be listed within the confines of this newspaper. I think an important thing we all should know is that junior Matt Hug won his race and set a meet record doing it. The stud swam a 4:34.66 in the 500-yard freestyle. I have seen people run a slower 500 than that. I know a lot of you are curious about what the meet was like, how the swimmers are training, and what their feelings are about the rest of the season. Senior Chris Scheuber sent me an email on the subject. I was going to chop this email up and give it to you in small niblets of deliciousness, but I decided you could handle it in its entirety, and it might actually be a crime to butcher what this cunning linguist wrote. Hold on to this newspaper tightly: “For this particular meet, there were 2 sessions, and if you put all of the events of the meet together, half of the meet was just for fun, and the other half was to get up and race real events, and I think we as a team did that. We had some pretty good swims for where we are at this point in the season, but we have a very long way to go before we’re ready for Nationals in March.” To this point in the season, a lot of focus has been placed on aerobic activity and not so much on the specialized events. In the weeks to come, the team will begin to split into the specialized groups, and I think that’s when the team will begin to really improve and show tremendous amounts of strength. As a team, we’re looking very strong for this season, returning all but one of our NCAA team members from last year, and we picked up 3 very strong freshmen as well. The leadership this team has with the number of upperclassmen will not only help out this year, but sets the team in a very nice position for years to come.” This appropriately describes the team’s aspirations and upcoming competition in the UMR swim teams near future. I hope you guys are as excited for this swimming season as I am. If you want a reason to cheer this year, it might be best to create a cult following for our swim team, as they consistently perform throughout the season. |
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