Month-long winter break ends with loss

Following a month of winter training, the IU men's swimming team finally got the chance to get back into the pool for competition Saturday in a home dual meet against Ohio State. While the Hoosiers ultimately fell to the Buckeyes, 133-110, the team set six season best times and 14 personal best times. \n"As a whole, we had a month off and the very first meet is kind of a character test for where you're at," head coach Kris Kirchner said. "As a team we stood up there and raced every race very well. I would say most of our guys swam the best of the season at this point and that's a good sign."\nThe meet opened with the closest finish of the competition, as Ohio State edged the Hoosier A relay team (sophomore Matt Leach, junior David Schulze, and freshmen Murph Halasz and Val Milkov) by two hundredths of a second in the 400-yard medley race. The teams' time of 3:20.35 was a season best.\n"It's disappointing, to get beat by two one hundredths of a second," Kirchner said. "Two one-hundredths. I mean you can't see two one-hundredths, literally, humans can't see that. It's that close."\nFreshman Richard Bryant won the 1650-yard freestyle and set a new season best (15:52.59) by nearly 7 seconds over the second place Ohio State finisher. Bryant said he was pleased with his performance, even though it didn't come in his top event.\n"I do not like swimming the mile," Bryant said. "It's not my favorite event, but if it helps the team, I'll swim it. I thought I swam pretty well as a whole." \nBryant also swam to a first place finish in the 500-yard freestyle, finishing with a time of 4:32.21.\nIn the 200-yard breaststroke, Schulze took first with a time of 2:02.47 and in the 200-yard freestyle, senior Heath Montgomery's second place time of 1:40.49 set a season best.\n"The scoreboard doesn't show how well we swam," Schulze said. "We're faster across the board in every event than we were last year."\nSophomores Claes Andersson and Dale Ramsy went one-two in the 50-yard freestyle with a season best time of 20.55 and 20.74 respectively. Andersson then set another season best as he and Ramsy took the second (45.37) and third (46.48) spots in the 100-yard freestyle respectively. \nIn the 400-yard freestyle relay, the relay squad of Milkov, Andersson, sophomore Mike Payne and Ramsy took first place with a season best 3:03.10 time. \n"Dale Ramsy was outstanding," Kirchner said. "He had a lifetime best in the 50-free, a lifetime best in the 100-free and he stood up there in the relay and was way better than he's ever been. That's great, he's a hell of a tough guy and he loves competition."\nHalasz won the 200-yard butterfly with a 1:47.81 time, just over a second from Mark Spitz's 1972 IU record time. \n"It's very good," Kirchner said. "He's on track for being the fastest 200 flyer in IU history for sure." \nKirchner said that, while the Hoosiers didn't win, he understood that not everyone will have their best performances on the same day.\n"It comes down to a meet -- you've got 13 events," Kirchner said. "Every event was competitive. Every event was tough. Our divers didn't perform, but I know they will perform in the future, they have bad days. You're constantly coaching, you're searching for a day everything goes right. But, I haven't met a perfect human yet. I'm waiting for that to happen."\nOn the diving side of the competition, sophomore Marc Carlton placed fourth off of the one-meter boards with a season-best score of 341.70 and second off of the three-meter boards with a score of 341.70. Carlton said his gainer-twister was the key to his success in the three-meter dive.\n"Off of the three-meter, I did a real hard gainer-twister and that went well," Carlton said. "I just learned it last week actually, and I've probably done it less than ten times. It's the hardest dive in my lift now, and it went okay. I would've liked to do it better, but it was alright for this point in the season. Overall, on the three meter, I did well, and the one meter was kind of a bad day."\nSophomore Alex Burns placed fourth (310.58) in the three-meter competition and sixth (174.30) in the one-meter. Head coach Jeff Huber said fatigue from practice and a diving session at Purdue the night before the meet contributed to the team's performance. \n"I know our guys were a little tired, but I thought they did a nice job," Huber said. "Marc especially, he just gets better and better. He looked a little bit tired and it did affect his diving somewhat. But, you can be tired and you still have to go out and perform, and I think they did. Alex still dove well and Marc was just a little bit off. Overall, I think we'll come out of it a lot better off." \nThe Hoosiers next competition is against Iowa and Minnesota in Iowa City on January 26th.