The swimming and diving teams took part in two competitive dual meets this past weekend with both the men’s and women’s teams picking up wins against the College of Wooster on Friday, Nov. 3 and Oberlin College on Saturday, Nov. 4.

Against the College of Wooster, the men’s team was able to cruise to a 178.5-58.5 victory while the women were able to pull out a 133.5-105.5 win. The next day the Spartans came back and both the men’s and women’s teams were able to crush Oberlin 199-70 and 189-85 respectively.

Both the men’s and women’s teams were able to pull off the pair of wins after falling to Carnegie Mellon University the week before to start new win streaks. Both teams are 3-1 for the season.

Head Coach Doug Milliken was happy with how his team fared in its first back-to-back meet of the season. He likes swimming his teams on consecutive days early in the season in order to prepare them for the University Athletic Association (UAA) meet and the national meet later in the season, both of which are multi-day meets.

“Our biggest meets of the year are ones in which we have to compete in back-to-back days, so this is a small way to prepare for that,” said Milliken. “It’s a way to learn to compete at a high level even when tired. I thought the team did that fairly well.”

While Milliken still realizes there is a lot of work to do to keep his team improving, he is pleased with the early performances his team has showed this season.

“Overall, I am pretty happy with where we are at,” he said. “The team is pretty broken down with our training, but still competing well.”

In order to keep improving, Milliken just wants his team to trust the process and keep working hard while only changing small parts of its style.

Looking ahead, CWRU will be hosting Gannon University, Grove City College and the University of Rochester for a quad meet on Friday, Nov. 17 and Saturday, Nov. 18.
Although Milliken isn’t doing anything special to prepare his team for this quad meet he does realize a little more will be on the line for his athletes.

“Anytime we can compete against another UAA school it matters a little more,” he said. “Additionally, Grove City College is very strong this year and we will have to compete at our highest level to be successful.”