It was a good weekend for the Geneseo Blue Wave, as both the men’s and women’s teams came in first place at the Ithaca invitational, which took place from Friday Dec. 2-Sunday Dec. 4. “I was very pleased with the performance of both teams. We have been working hard all semester and took just a couple of days’ rest and they responded well,” head coach Paul Dotterweich said.
Senior men’s swimmer Kevin Schaub continued his impressive season, with a win in the 200m backstroke with a time of 1:52.85. Schaub also swam on two winning relays. Schaub helped win the 200m medley relay along with teammates sophomore swimmer Troy Miller, junior swimmer Scott Guyton and junior swimmer Jeff Doser, with a time of 1:34.24. The same group also won the 400m medley relay with a time of 3:28.91.
“Our medley relay success is a function of the guys on the relay,” Dotterweich said. “They are talented athletes and seem to feed off each other.”
The men were able to win by 600 points because of the team’s depth, in addition to their talent, according to Dotterweich.
The Knights clearly have depth and they have top-end talent, as seen in the performances by junior diver Sam Randall, Doser and Schaub alone week in and week out.
“Sam, Jeff and Kevin are definitely critical to our success,” Dotterweich said. “In most meets, we can count on those guys for multiple wins.”
The women also impressed over the weekend. With the win, they moved to 5-1 overall on the season, same as the men.
Sophomore swimmers Nancy Shemet and Nancy Nasky performed extremely well during the meet. Shemet won the 400m IM with a time of 4:42.79 and finished second in the 200m butterfly. Nasky won the 1,650m freestyle with a time of 17:27.26.
Additionally, Shemet swam on three top-three relays. This included the 200m medley relay with a time of 1:49.23, the 400m medley relay with a time of 4:00.99 and the 400m free relay with a time of 3:33.11.
“Both Nasky and Shemet are important pieces to the puzzle, but similar to the men, we won last weekend because of our depth,” Dotterweich said. “Two weeks ago, Ithaca’s women beat us in a dual meet where having a few studs won’t carry your team. In a championship format, depth wins.”
The women finished with 1,528 points, placing ahead of the second-place Bombers who had 1,433 and third-place Shippensburg who had 1,190.
Both sides of the Blue Wave are off until Jan. 14, when they have a tri-meet at Carnegie Mellon. They will face the hosts and Westminster.
The Blue Wave will focus on finishing the season strong, however, Dotterweich stated two specific goals they are focusing on: “Simple: win SUNYACs and send people to NCAAs.”