’Dogs struggle against top two teams

The men's swimming team's biggest rival, Missouri University of Science and Technology, came to town last Friday. The Bulldogs could not pull off the win against the No. 2 team in the nation, losing 119-81.

Sophomore Jerod Simek won the 1,000-yard freestyle in 9:48.02 with freshman Sam Collier finishing four seconds behind for his season-best time of 9:52.53.

Simek also won the 500-yard freestyle, beating out the Miners' Phillip Arve by four seconds, and sophomore Taylor Frymire placed second in the 50-yard freestyle in 22.53 seconds.

Senior James Barber said that every year the team has this tough weekend, but the meet with S&T; gets the team energized.

"We always get up and go for Rolla," Barber said. "That's our big rivalry in state. It's always good competition."

Each team sees a lot of familiar faces when they meet, as Barber said there are a lot of former teammates from the swimmers' high schools on both sides of the pool. Simek's brother, sophomore Andrew Simek swims for the Miners and took third place in the 200-yard butterfly.

Barber said the meet against S&T; was more demanding than usual on the swimmers because it was only the men's teams, whereas normally the women's race would offer breaks.

Less than 24 hours after racing against the No. 2 team in the nation, the Bulldogs were back in the pool against No. 1 Drury University, against whom the men fell by a score of 140-65.  

The lone senior honored for the men's team last weekend was Barber.

Sophomore Tony Hernandez was the only event winner that day for the Bulldogs, taking first in the 100-yard fly, and second in the 100-yard backstroke.

Simek finished second in the 200-yard freestyle and junior Brian Tillis was second in the 1,000-yard freestyle.

Going up against the No. 1 and 2 teams in the nation during the same weekend is a daunting task, but Barber said many of the team's best times were recorded this weekend.

"Most of the guys have gone through this before," Barber said. "We do it every year this week. It's a fast meet. Every year it's always high energy.

"We've always done really well against them compared to some of the other meets in the year. Usually our best times are at this meet almost guaranteed, and this year was no different."

Interim head coach Jennifer Godlewski said the fatigue was a factor on multiple levels for the Bulldogs. They not only swam demanding races on back-to-back days, but also did not taper its normal training routine.

Godlewski said the team's main focus is achieving its best times at conference, and it would not be beneficial to its training schedule to ease up training for dual meets like these, as the team makes up for its missed training trip during Winter Break.

Many of the Bulldogs' best races of the year have come from freshman and sophomores, and interim assistant coach Danielle Odenthal said the team is "up and coming."

"We definitely have a lot of young talent," Odenthal said. "Our sophomore class is our strongest class I would say. Brian Tillis has gone to nationals, and the junior class will be a good leading class next year."

Odenthal also emphasized that the main relays at the conference meet will be composed of sophomores for the Bulldogs because they are some of the team's strongest swimmers. The relay events are worth more points than the individual races in determining a meet's winning team.

Truman has its work cut out for it, as all of the chips are on conference meet in the effort to move on to nationals.

Odenthal and Godlewski said the teams will be working on the finer points of speed — starts, turns and finishes — these last few weeks as the teams move closer to the conference meet.

"That is the nature of the beast," Godlewski said. "The nature of the sport is to put all of the emphasis of a season to peak for a short period of time at the end of the season."