At long last, the drought is over.
With a win against Air Force on Saturday, the Utah men’s swimming and diving team broke its nearly two-year losing streak and earned its first win of the season. The last win for the Utes came Jan. 27, 2007, when they defeated the Falcons in Salt Lake City.
“It feels great to put together a win for the men,” said head coach Greg Winslow. “I’m proud of them. We not only took first in events, but second and third in a few against a good Air Force team. That speaks volumes for our program.”
The Utes started out the meet strong going 1-2 in the first two events and never looked back as they went on to place first in 11 of 16 events on the day.
Senior George Evans and freshman Eric Murray got things started for Utah, taking first place in the first two events, the 1650 free and 200 free, respectively.
“The men are learning what it takes to win,” Winslow said. “The team got excited when George and Eric won and it got contagious and that excitement showed up in the pool.”
Despite the men being able to pull out the win over the Falcons, the team was unable to walk away from the weekend with the two wins they had hoped for.
The men’s team lost a close meet to the Wyoming Cowboys on Friday evening, going 1-1 in the two weekend home meets.
“The men had a great meet, but just were unable to finish,” Winslow said after the loss. “Wyoming is a great team though, so for the men to be in the meet like they were is telling of how far they have come this season.”
As the men earned their first win of the season, the women’s team continued its domination in dual-meet, besting both Wyoming and Air Force during the weekend.
As they dominated in the Air Force meet Saturday, winning 14 of 16 events, the women had to come from behind to get the victory over Wyoming on Friday.
After the first half of the meet, the team found itself trailing by almost 20 points, but some changes made to the lineup gave the Utes the edge they needed to win seven of the last eight events to give them the overall win.
“We really needed a spark to be able to win, so we had to switch things around and put Whitney (Lopus), Hannah (Caron) and Annie (VanLeeuwen) in some different events,” Winslow said. “Those women are some of the best swimmers in the conference and I think those changes made all the difference.”
Neither the men’s nor women’s teams have a meet this week, but will be using their extra time preparing to face rivals BYU in the home meet Feb. 7.
Erik DaenitzThe U’s Simon Oberholzer swims his way to a victory in the men’s 100 yard butterfly, Saturday. The men’s team earned their first victory of the season, defeating Air Force 157-143.