The Wayland Baptist swimming and diving teams kicked off their second season Saturday in a dual with UT-Permian Basin. The Falcons won both the men’s and women’s duals, but the Pioneers had several bright spots in their first taste of competition of 2014.
Six individual men and both relays made cuts for the NAIA National Championships, while two individual women and both relays made their cuts.
The highlight of the meet for WBU was both men’s 200-yard freestyle relay teams beating UT-Permian Basin. The WBU “B” team, comprised of Josiah Morales, Bentley Gilbert, Bjoern Globke and Jake Farley, won the relay in 1 minute, 30.12 seconds, while the WBU “A” team was close behind with a time of 1:30.40. The “A” team, comprised of Hugo Gallegos, Nathan McCormick, Brandon Rodriguez and Ethan Nicholson, finished more than two seconds before either UTPB team.
“All of those guys are swimming 21- and 22-second split times, so we split them up as evenly as we could to really challenge ourselves and see how the guys competed,” head coach Alyson Hannan said. “It was really fun to watch that relay, and both teams beat (UTPB) pretty handily.”
Individually, Gallegos picked up a win in the 100-yard freestyle, finishing in 48.92 seconds, while Gilbert came in third with a time of 51.57 seconds.
Morales also gave the Pioneers a win, turning in a time of 54.02 seconds to take first in the 200-yard butterfly.
Globke and Farley finished second in the 500 freestyle and the 100 breaststroke, respectively. Globke finished in 59.56 seconds, while Farley finished in 5:08.16, just 8/10ths of a second behind the winner.
Although none of the Pioneers won the 200-yard free, Nicholson (1:50.25) and McCormick (1:50.60) finished second and third, respectively.
On the women’s side, the Pioneers lost the 200 medley relay, but they were just three seconds from qualifying for nationals.
Newcomer Mylie Oberg won the women’s 1,000-yard freestyle with a time of 11:18.36, as well as the 500-free in 5::27.70.
Vianney Trujillo gave the WBU women their other win, coming in first in the 100-yard breaststroke in 1:11.64. Trujillo also came in second in the 100-yard butterfly, turning in a time of 1:03.94.
“We had a great meet,” Hannan said. “We’re getting ready to really step up our training, so today was a good indication of where we’re at. We’re going to start ramping it up on Monday, so we’ll see some even faster times by the end of the month.
“We’re missing a few people on both the men’s and women’s teams, so they had a lot more people getting points than we did because they had more depth. Once we get our full roster and work through some issues we’re going through, we’ll be good.”
The Pioneers also swam in an outdoor pool Saturday as opposed to an indoor pool where they do all their training.
“We had to deal with some elements that we’re not used to such as having the sun in our eyes, but we had some great swims Saturday, especially when you consider that we aren’t used to training outdoors.”
The Pioneers next compete in the Wayland Baptist Invitational on Oct. 24 and 25 at the Pete Ragus Center in Lubbock.
High School Swimming News courtesy of WBS.