Republished from Tech News - The Scarlet Hawks' swimming team traveled to Romeoville on Saturday to take on the Flyers of Lewis University. The team was pumped and ready to swim fast, and swim fast they did. The first impressive swim of the morning came from senior Joe Taylor, in the 50 Butterfly leg of the Men's 200 Medley Relay. The relay started off with freshmen Matthew Rosenfeld and Michael Keane, followed by Taylor, who swam the butterfly in a 22.07, pulling ahead of Lewis' Matthew Schmidt. Although Allan Sliva of Lewis out swam freshman Eric Grunden in the Freestyle leg, the relay's overall time was a 1:41.37, a National qualifying time by almost ten seconds. Taylor also qualified for Nationals in the 200 Butterfly, taking a 2nd place finish with a time of 1:59.13, only nine seconds off of the current team record.

In the mile, junior Shea Taylor had an impressive swim, posting a time of 17:48.13 and qualifying for Nationals himself, followed closely by senior Greg Herbert and sophomore Ryan Tapak with times of 19:09.38 and 20:17.54 respectively. In the Men's 200 free, junior Neto Miller swam the event in a time of 1:51.13, missing the National cut by just .04 seconds. Sophomore Max Ramminger improved his 50 Freestyle time from last weekend to a 21.41 for a first place finish, getting closer to the school record of 20.73.

In the 400 Individual Medley, sophomore Morgan Curran crushed the National qualifying time of 5:13.29, swimming the event in a 4:56.62, and taking a 2nd place finish. On the men's side, junior Joe Muchna swam the event in a qualifying time of 4:32.90, followed closely by Keane, with a time of 4:35.18, and also qualifying for Nationals.

Freshman Victoria Masney qualified herself in yet another event, this time the 100 Freestyle, which she took 2nd in with a time of 55.06. Sophomore Andrea Zuniga took 3rd and qualified in the 200 Backstroke, with a time of 2:20.65. Sophomore Melanie Koto took 2nd in the 500 Freestyle, qualifying for Nationals by about half a second, with a time of 5:33.93.

Sophomores Morgan Curran and Julia Duarte took 2nd and 3rd in the 200 Breaststroke, both qualifying for the event with times of 2:37.43 and 2:39.17 respectively. Senior Jay Park also qualified, swimming the race in a time 2:17.20, beating the qualifying time by six seconds, and taking 1st in the race.

Finishing up the meet strong, the men's 200 Freestyle Relay of Ramminger, Grunden, Miller and Taylor swam the event in a time of 1:26.57, taking 1st place, and again swimming ten seconds faster than the National qualifying time. Also qualifying with a time of 1:33.93 was the team of freshman John Lyman, junior Mark Callan, Rosenfeld and sophomore Keiji Halloway.

Next weekend the team hosts Lindenwood University, and will also do the drawing for the team raffle for a Lenovo Netbook labtop. Get your tickets while you can, and come out to Keating on Saturday, November 14th at 11 am to cheer on your swimmers and divers!