This weekend, your Laker Swimming and Diving rallied in a three day meet, The Warrior Invite. They traveled down to Fremont, Nebraska and took on Midland University, Nebraksa- Kearney, College of Saint Mary and Iowa Western to see where we stood in the midseason.
The Warrior invite is a prelims and finals meet, these means swimmers will swim in the morning to qualify to swim in the afternoon. Thursday held these events, the 500 free, the 200 IM and the 50 Free.
Starting off in the 500, Freshman Roberto Suarez dropped time from his entry time. He started off with a 5:20.01, dropped in prelims to a 5.16.09 and locked in a good finals time with a 5.10.03. Huge drop! Freshman Jochem Lemmens competed in the 200 IM with an entry time of 2:07.50, dropped time to a 2:06.21 and ended finals with a 2:05.13! In the 50 free, Sophomore Grant Bumsted dropped time from a 23.53 to a 22.61.
Friday was a whole new set of events which included the 100 Fly, 200 Free, 100 Breast and the 100 Back. In the 100 Fly, Bumsted dropped time to a 53.79 and freshman Ethan Heideyer went in with a no time, swam prelims in 53.81 and then swam finals in 50.76! Personal Best (PB) for Ethan! Suarez swam the 200 free, going in with a no time. swam prelims with a 1:54.28 and then dropped in finals to a 1:53.21! Freshman Jochem Lemmens started the 100 Breast with a 1:04.54, dropped in prelims to a 1:03.59 and the finished off finals with a 1:02.94 which is a PB! Heideyer finished everything off with a no time in the 100 Back, swam prelis in 56.38 and then finals in 52.86 placing 3rd overall! In Finals, the Men swam the 400 Medley Relay and finished with a 3:41.40.
Saturday Morning held the 100 Free, 200 Breast, 200 Back, 200 Fly and the 1650. Heideyer crushed the competition with a 46.08 which is a personal best! Lemmens went into the 200 breast with no time and ended with a 2:20.31. Bumsted took on the 200 fly and earned a great time of 2:10.97. And Suarez ended the morning with a mile long swim ending in 18:18.40.
Overall, massive time drops for the Lakers! All resulting in National Qualifying times, and better seeding for the National Meet!
The Lakers get to enjoy a little break over Christmas and the New year then come back to compete in the Norse Sprint Invite in January!
Go Lakers!