Both Carleton’s men and women varsity swim squads finished twelfth in the Ontario University Athletics (OUA) championships, hosted by Brock University Feb. 5-7.
Both teams were able to hold their heads high as they showed great improvement from last year’s OUAs. The men’s team reeled in 30 points, 15 more than last year, while the women’s team scored 61, 16 more than last year’s record.
Co-coach Dale Colman said she was proud of the Ravens team and its multiple achievements.
“The team performed very well over the weekend at the OUA swimming championships. Overall as a team we met one of our goals, which was to score more team points that last year, which we did. Each swimmer had his or her own individual goals in terms of times and we met many of those, finishing the meet with 34 best times out of 44 races.”
One of the biggest achievements came from Kaitlin Swales, who broke all of her previous best times by at least two seconds.
“I am really happy with the way I swam and placed this weekend,” Swales said. “There were a lot more faster people at the meet this year compared to last year so I was really nervous going into it, but [Coleman] is a big factor in how well I swam this year. She is a very motivating coach and pushed me to work harder.”
With this season all wrapped up, Colman said she is already thinking about ways to improve for next year.
“We are always looking to add committed swimmers to the team, so part of our improvement will come from bigger numbers — we took seven women and four men to the OUA championships but league rules state that we can bring 18 of each sex.”
With such a small squad there were no disappointments in the joint efforts of both the men’s and women’s swim teams.
Colman spoke nothing but the best of her 2010 squad.
“We had a really great weekend with numerous exciting and passionate swims. The team rallied together well and handled the four days of racing exceptionally. I am very proud of the work they did this year and all of their individual accomplishments at OUAs.”