The Cougars swimming and diving team had the tough challenge last weekend of travelling to North Carolina to compete against four quality squads, Duke, Georgia Tech, North Carolina-Wilmington and Emory.
The Cougars lost to Duke, 188-110, and Georgia Tech, 179-119, on Friday in Durham, N.C. Things didn’t get any easier Saturday, as the Cougars fell to Emory, 152-141, and North Carolina-Wilmington, 162-135, in Wilmington.
Head coach Mark Taylor says even though the team lost, competing against better teams will help it improve.
‘These are head-to-head competitions that we have to race to prepare ourselves for our final meet, which is the conference championships,’ Taylor said. ‘It’s unfortunate that we lost four meets. We’ll peak when we peak, but you have to go through the bad to get to the good.’
The Cougars, however, had some outstanding individual performances. At the forefront of the diving team were Jessalyn Almond and Anastasia Pozdniakova, who set pool records on the diving board.
Pozdniakova set ‘A’ marks of 344.85 in the 1-meter competition and 368.25 in the 3-meter competition Friday. She set two more records Saturday, with a 354.75 in the 1-meter competition and a 359.95 in the 3-meter competition in Wilmington.
Almond finished second in both events.
Taylor says watching Pozdniakova dive was a treat.
‘When you see Anastasia dive, that’s as close to perfection as you can see somebody do it,’ Taylor said.
The swimming team had some members shine as well.
In Durham, N.C., Beccy Hillis set a pool record by winning the 200-yard breaststroke in 2 minutes, 16.80 seconds, an NCAA ‘B’ time. Hillis also won the 100-yard breaststroke in 1:04.03 and Saturday’s 100-yard breaststroke in 1:05.88.
Taylor said that Hillis was the leader of the charge.
‘Beccy Hillis, all weekend long, was outstanding in her races,’ Taylor said. ‘In the middle of hard training, like we’re doing right now, she was able to make an NCAA ‘B’ qualifying time, which is shocking. She was definitely the star of the weekend.’
Kim Eeson and Reka Kovacs also won multiple events.
Eeson won Friday’s 200-yard freestyle event with a 1:51.83 finish, and Kovacs won the 200-yard individual medley in 2:07.02.
Eeson’ took first’ the 200-yard freestyle event again Saturday in 1:53.18. She also won the 500-yard freestyle with a 5:07.08 finish.
Kovacs won Saturday’s 400-yard individual medley in 4:31.98.
Taylor says the main difference was the extra resources the other teams had available.
‘If you look at it, we took 14 swimmers and two divers to the meets in North Carolina,’ Taylor said. ‘We went up against teams that had 61 people at Duke, 39 people at Georgia Tech, and the next day it was the same situation. So (we) were a little bit ‘shell-shocked.’
‘It’s a learning curve. That’s why we do those individual competitions like we had this weekend.’
