Results vs. Iowa

Results vs. Valparaiso

MACOMB, Ill.  — The Western Illinois swimming and diving teams fell at Iowa Friday, Feb. 5 before splitting with Valparaiso Saturday, Feb. 6 in the team's last meets heading into The Summit League Championships.

The Fighting Leatherneck men's team fell to the Hawkeyes 162-52 before rebounding for a 116-107 win over the Crusaders. The Western women fell to Iowa 168-60 before suffering a 137-87 setback at Valpo.

“Today was a much better day than we saw yesterday,” Western Illinois coach Greg Naumann said following the Valparaiso meet. “Yesterday was a day where we were competing against a very tough opponent. The Hawkeyes are a very strong team that has chance to make it to nationals this year.

“Valpo is a little closer to where we are numbers and ability wise. We changed some things up for this afternoon so we were able to get up and swim a little faster.”

Against the Hawkeyes senior Taylor Martin had a strong outing with a second-place finish in the 50-yard breaststroke, a fourth-place finish in the 100-yard IM in 1:02.49 and a fourth-place finish in the 50-yard butterfly in 26.78 for the Leatherneck women's team.

For the Western men, Braydon Rudy posted a second-place finish in the 500-yard freestyle in 4:59.55 and Bart Pienkowski took second in the 50-yard breaststroke in 31.10.

Naumann said he mixed things up for his squad against the Crusaders, shifting swimmers out of their dominant event in order to rest for The Summit League Championship meet Feb. 18-20. Despite not swimming their signature events, the Leathernecks fared well at Valpo.

Jeff Davis posted a pair of wins in the 1,000-yard freestyle in a time of 10:05.93 and the 100-yard breaststroke in a time of 1:01.30 while Brandon Wilkinson won the 200-yard IM in a time of 2:03.34 and Phil Kurz won the 100-yard freestyle in a season-best time of 49.05.

David Rilott swam a season-best time of 22.62 in the 50-yard freestyle to take second place, Blake Higgins swam a season-best time of 54.60 to take second in the 100-yard butterfly and Mike Regan swam a season-best time of 57.33 in the 100-yard backstroke to take second.

For the women's squad, Martin led the way with a win in the 50-yard freestyle in a season-best time of 24.45 and Laura Dinkelmann won the 400-yard IM in 4:41.74. Also for the Leatherneck women, Alayna Colley placed second in both the 100-yard freestyle and the 200-yard IM in season-best times. Colley swam 56.86 in the 100-freestyle and 2:17.82 in the 200-IM.

“Overall, it was a really good meet for us,” Naumann said. “This kind of gives us a little chip on our shoulder heading into conference that we can go in there, get up and swim fast.”