We got off to a great start at our first Northwest Conference Dual meets of the season! Whitman's Men and Women defeated Linfield College and Willamette University easily last weekend. Both days had some great races for our swimmers! You can see full results and read a full recap of the weekend's swim meets here.
Though back-to-back weekends of away swim meets are a little wearing, we come away from the long bus rides and team meals a more cohesive and supportive team than we were just a couple weeks ago. As much fun as it is to swim fast and rack up some solid victories, a big part of our away meets is what happens off the pool deck.
The closeness that our team has on and off the deck is thanks, in large part, to the traveling that we get to do as a team. Where some college teams never have the experience of traveling more than an hour or two from campus, Whitman's swimmers get the experience of spending two whole days with each other every time we travel. It might not sound like fun to spend 5 hours on a bus two days in a row--but our swimmers walk away from trips like these past two weekends having taking countless bad photos of one another, experimenting with new hairstyles, and, of course, eating a lot. Ask any Whitman swimmer what parts of the season are the most fun and without a doubt, he or she will tell you it's all about the away meets and getting to spend time with the team.
This weekend, the level of competition gets cranked up a notch as we welcome the Lewis & Clark College and Pacific University teams to our only home meets of the season. Whitman's women have a long history of doing battle with Lewis & Clark, two times coming in 4th place at the NWC Championships, finishing just 1 point behind L&C each year. At last year's dual meets between Pacific and L&C, Whitman's women won, thanks to some outstanding breaststrokers and some killer free relays that neither team could match. L&C graduated the reigning NWC Champion in the 100 freestyle after 2012-13 season but it will almost certainly remain a tight contest on Friday night. On Saturday afternoon, Pacific's Katie Porter will give Whitman Freshman, Tai Hallstein, a great contest in the sprint events. Porter is the NWC Championship Meet record holder in both the 50 and 100 freestyle, at 23.58 and 52.06 respectively. She is also the defending NWC Champion in the 100 butterfly. At the 2012 Whitman vs. Pacific dual, Whitman needed to win the final freestyle relay in order to win the meet, which the Whitman women were able to do. Saturday's meet is not one you'll want to miss!
For Whitman's Men, L&C should provide some excellent races. Like last weekend's meet against Willamette, several of L&C's swimmers will go toe-to-toe with some of Whitman's swimmers. Historically, however, the Whitman Men have been able to handle what L&C brings to the table. Saturday's meet against Pacific should be extremely exciting! Pacific's Michael Hargitt, a Senior this year, is the reigning NWC Champion in both the 200 IM and 200 breaststroke. He was also runner up in the the 400 IM at last year's NWC Championships. Combined with some other solid swimmers on the team, Hargitt and the Pacific Men and Whitman's Men should have a close and exciting meet!
Friday's meet against Lewis & Clark starts at 6pm at Harvey Pool, Saturday against Pacific at 1pm. See you at the pool!
