MACOMB, Ill. - Western Illinois swimming & diving opened their season with a duel meet against Saint Louis on Saturday afternoon (Oct. 5) at Brophy Pool in Macomb. On the men's side, Saint Louis defeated the Leathernecks, 167-127, while the Billikens defeated the Western women, 219-72.

“On both sides, SLU usually beats us pretty well at this meet, and then we start to gain some ground on them as we move further into our season,” said head coach Greg Naumann. “I was pretty happy with what I saw out of both teams at the beginning of the meet, and then the less than normal aerobic conditioning got us on the back end of the meet. We had some very good close races by many people resulting in a first or second-place. We had more of these types of races this year, than I recall from this same meet last year.”

Individually on the men's side, Matt Abercrombie recorded first-place finishes in both the 1000 free (10:10.66) and 500 free (4:50.39) for the Leathernecks. True-freshman Chris Neaveill notched victories in both the 100 butterfly (51.56) and 50 butterfly (23.30) in his first collegiate meet.

On the women's side, Lizzie Hollopeter recorded a victory in the 100 backstroke with a time of 1:03.58. Julia Rassmussen finished in second-place in the 100 free with a time of 55.77. Rasmussen also won the 1-meter dive with a score of 202.45.

Doug Ogilvie recorded wins in both the 1-meter dive 269.00 and 3-meter dive 257.35. Viktor Rusenas finished in second-place in both dives with scores of 218.02 and 189.40. Patrick Oliver rounded out the Western divers with scores of 205.30 and 186.25.

“We had a pretty solid meet on both sides. We lost on the women's side by more than the previous couple of years, but we were missing a couple of swimmers for various reasons,” added Naumann.  

“We will continue to do what we're doing in the pool and the weight room as we look towards our Purple and Gold meet, as well as the alumni meet next weekend,” concluded Naumann.

The Purple & Gold meet will take place next Friday (Oct. 11) at 5 p.m., while the alumni meet will take place on Saturday morning (Oct. 12) at 11 a.m. Both meets will take place at the Brophy Hall Pool.