Swim finishes season undefeated, named Scholar All America

Home Charger Swimming Swim finishes season undefeated, named Scholar All America
Swim finishes season undefeated, named Scholar All America

The Hillsdale College swim team pulled out a win at its last tri-meet of the 2021-2022 season, making the team officially undefeated for the second year in a row, according to coach Kurt Kirner. The meet on Jan. 21 saw Hillsdale race Davenport College and Calvin University with final scores of 125-109 and 127-104 respectively.

This week, the Chargers swim team was also named the Scholar All America Team for the 15th year in a row by the College Swimming and Diving Coaches Association of America. Teams who are awarded this distinction must have a teamwide GPA of 3.0 or higher. The team boasts a cumulative GPA of 3.43.

“I’m so proud of our team,” sophomore Caroline Holmes said. “The curriculum at this school and the practices that we do are both pretty challenging, and it’s so awesome that our team can excel in both areas.”

“Whether we’ve had injuries, we have not been at our best at so many of these meets,” Kirner said. “But then again, other teams have their issues too. It’s just about everybody who is on deck for us being able to step up and fulfill a role in race.”

The whole Charger team got a chance to compete this week.

JUMP

“Our whole team was back together. Some of us, including me, were gone for COVID last week when we narrowly beat Saginaw Valley. So it was nice to have a full team again,” Sophomore Caroline Holmes said.

Though the point margins were not quite as tight as last week’s 114-113 win, the meet was close, especially considering both Davenport and Calvin had divers in the rotation, which earned them 32 points each. 

“We had a number of races where we just won by a couple hundreds of seconds or we just won by a touch, or we came from behind,” Kirner said. “And I mean, it’s just impressive. It’s the true definition of what a competitor should be. So I’m just so happy and thrilled with their response to things and their ability to go into it and understand just what it takes to compete.”

Notable wins came from junior Leah Tunney who finished the 200 yard freestyle in 1:55.79. She just out-touched the second place finisher who swam a 1:55.92. Freshman Megan Clifford came third (1:58.86) and sophomore Sarah Pataniczek came fifth (2:00.27).

Freshmen Joanna Burnham and Emma Dickhudt came two and four in the 200 yard individual medley at 2:14.04 and 2:17.25 respectively.

Clifford won the 100 yard butterfly with a 59.03, again just hundreths of a second faster than the second place finisher. Pataniczek finished third with 1:01.17 and senior Stefanie Walker finished sixth at 1:02.36.

Hillsdale came first and second in the 100 yard freestyle, with junior Marie Taylor in first (53.65) and sophomore Cecilia Guadalupi (54.34) in second.

Holmes won the 100 yard backstroke with a 1:00.34 even after missing the last meet and multiple days of practice due to contracting COVID-19. The second place finisher swam a 1:00.40.

“I was proud of that, I fought for that finish,” Holmes said. “I’m definitely feeling the remnants of not being in the water for a week now, but I think I was just trying to block it out in the race.”

Tunney also topped the 500 yard freestyle with a 5:12.57. Junior Sarah Clark and sophomore Amy Mills finished fifth (5:26.43) and sixth (5:30.33).

In the 100 yard breaststroke, Hillsdale swimmers came fourth, fifth, and seventh. Dickhudt swam a 1:10.33, Burnham a 1:10.78, and junior Hannah Douthitt a 1:12.29.

The Chargers closed out the meet with a win in the 200 yard freestyle relay. The team was composed of Guadalupi, junior Sydney Slepian, Tunney, and Taylor.

Kirner said he had never coached an undefeated season before last year in over thirty years of coaching college swimming.

“Being undefeated is never a distinct goal that we’re constantly striving for during the season,” Slepian said. “We take each win as it comes as a product of our hard work in and out of the pool and proof of our overall dedication to the sport.”

“It’s been an incredible season and we hope we can cap it off with an incredible conference meet and get some kids to qualify for NCAAs,” Kirner said.

The Chargers will swim at an invitational meet at Butler University on Sunday, Jan. 30.

“We’ll get to compete against a lot of different teams at a lot of different competition levels,” Holmes said. “A lot of people going to this will be fierce competitors and will just push us. And this is our one final meet before conference, so this is the time to finalize your race plan.”

Kirner said the meet will give them a good opportunity to prepare for conference.

“We’re really using this meet as an important opportunity to get those times and to practice against good competition,” Kirner said. “So it’s to practice our mindset and our mental plan, how we get prepared on deck for races and then just to practice some race plans.”

Kirner said he feels confident in how well the team will do at conference.

“We’re in a really fortunate situation. The Omicron wave that we have going on has really closed off a lot of meets and we have not had to interrupt our schedule for anything,” Kirner said. “So while we’re going to go in pretty crisp and well prepared, the other teams have stagnated a little bit. Now again, they’re going to be hungry to compete when they get to the championship.”

The G-MAC and Mountain West conference meet begins on Feb. 16 and will run through Feb. 19 as a conclusion to the regular season.