Blue Wave slips past Blue Devils

Although Geneseo's Blue Wave won their third meet this past weekend at SUNY Fredonia, the true depth of the team's roster was tested since several swimmers were unable to compete due to illness.

The rest of the team, however, stepped up and took the meet by a considerable margin. The men's team won 164-127, while the women's side beat the Blue Devils 161-137. As head coach Paul Dotterweich said, "We were short-handed due to sick athletes but our team depth showed because we handled Fredonia without much trouble." The Blue Wave swam well considering the circumstances. Their day was capped by the performance of junior Michelle Rodriguez, who won three events and set two pool records: in the 100-meter backstroke with a time of one minute, two seconds and in the 50m freestyle with a time of 24.92 seconds. Her final victory of the day came in the 200m backstroke, which she won in 2:15.38.

Dotterweich said he was proud of Rodriguez's effort, as well as the performance of freshman Austin Brennan in tough events such as the 200m breaststroke on the men's side. Brennan won three events by taking the 1,000 freestyle in 10:49.99, the 200m backstroke in 2:02.56 and the 200m individual medley in 2:07.81. Dotterweich said he was impressed with the ability of his team to step up when players fell ill.

The margin of victory, however, was far less than in previous weeks as Geneseo was unable to win every single event. While the Blue Wave showed their might in the swimming portions, they did poorly on the diving, losing several of the events to Fredonia by a relatively large scope.

This Saturday, Blue Wave will travel to SUNY Cortland for their second consecutive away meet. "It will be a bigger challenge and I'm hoping that we will be able to go in much healthier than we did this week," Dotterweich said. "Cortland should be good competition for us."

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