Charger swim hosted its only home meet of the season Saturday. Courtesy | Hillsdale College Athletic Department
At its only home meet of the season, Charger swim celebrated its senior day Oct. 28 with a commanding win against Albion College 135-66.
“Despite the weakness of Albion, we swam as great as I have ever seen in a dual meet with numerous best times and two pool records broken in the 400 medley relay and Megan’s performance in the 200 fly,” head coach Kurt Kirner said. “Spirits were very high with it being senior day and parents weekend.”
The 400 yard medley relay was the first event of the meet and the winning team comprised senior Caroline Holmes and juniors Joanna Burnham, Megan Clifford, and Lucia Ruchti who finished in 3:59.44, a second faster than the previous record. Clifford’s new pool record in the 200 yard butterfly ( 2:06.33) was a second faster than her swim at last year’s Albion meet around the same time in the season and only about five seconds short of the time that made her an All-American in the spring.
Kirner said these were “confident” performances.
“In the first event, the 400 medley, those four came out and set the standards for the meet, inspiring everyone on our team,” he said.
Junior and captain Emma Dickhudt said she was pleased with the results of the meet.
“We’re at a tough point in our training, but our times have been really good for this point in the year,” she said. “We’ve been looking back on last year and we’re a lot faster so that’s really exciting.”
Dickhudt won the 200 yard breaststroke in 2:26.90 and placed third in the 50 yard freestyle.
“I went a lifetime best in the 50 free, which is always exciting, and then in the 200 breaststroke I won the event and I did the same time I did last year at GMACs last year, so that’s a pretty big deal,” Dickhudt said.
The home meet also served as an occasion to celebrate the three senior members of the team: Holmes, Sarah Pataniczek, and Phoebe Johnston.
“It was really sentimental and I’m glad it was over parents weekend because my family got to be there,” Johnston said. “It’s a little bittersweet to be a senior because I am so thankful for everything this team has done for me and the ways it has helped me grow, but I also think Hillsdale has really equipped me to launch into the next phase.”
Dickhudt said she’s enjoyed her time on the team with the class of 2024.
“They’re all very influential on our team and team culture so they’ll be missed for sure,” she said.
The home meet was well-attended — even College President Larry Arnn made an appearance.
“It was really nice of him to show up and support us,” Dickhudt said “He wanted to meet each of us and he was asking a lot of questions like, ‘what event is this?’ and ‘how do you swim it?’ and things like that, so that was really kind of him.”
This weekend, the Chargers will compete twice: first against Indiana Wesleyan University on Friday and then against Malone University and Davis Elkins College on Saturday.
“It will be primarily a sprint weekend with a lot of shorter events to focus on our race mentality of just getting up and firing off a good performance,” Kirner said.
