Sports
Lindsay Lukes (front) and Beth Ann Abraham (back) hard at work doing laps at practice. Lukes won the conference 500-yard freestyle championship and the 200-yard freestyle.
Swim team wins WIAC title for tenth year straight
The Pointer
ataub878@uwsp.edu
The University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point men’s swim and dive team claimed its tenth consecutive win at the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Championship meet on Feb. 21, after three days of events hosted by UW-Whitewater at the Walter Schroeder Aquatic Center in Brown Deer, Wis. Also competing, the women’s swim and dive team took second in their division.
With a final score of 999.5, the men’s team took home the thirteenth WIAC first place trophy in Pointer history. UW-La Crosse took second place with 751.50 points and UW-Whitewater came in third with 555.50. In fourth place was UW-Eau Claire, followed by UW-Oshkosh and UW-River Falls.
The women’s team took second to UW-Lacrosse, who had a final score of 970. However, finishing with a score of 808, the Pointers were able to beat UW-Eau Claire by almost 200 points. Coming in fourth was UW-Whitewater followed by UW-Oshkosh in fifth place and UW- River Falls in sixth.
Head Coach Alan Boelk confirms that this was the fastest meet in the history of the WIAC, and by a wide margin. He described the meet as “simply incredible.”
Crushing personal lifetime bests, UW-SP swimmers re-wrote numerous school records as well as a significant portion of the WIAC Conference record book. Individual awards were also received by three members of the team.
Senior Chase Gross was named swimmer of the meet for the second consecutive season. This award is given to the most impressive single swimmer in the meet as voted by the WIAC coaches. As the fastest swimmer in WIAC history, Gross earned this honor by winning the 100-yard free-style with a conference meet record time of 44.70 seconds. This was the third time he won the event in his collegiate swim career.
“He is simply a great guy who understands what is really important. He is a team player, a great leader and very humble,” Coach Boelk said of Gross.
Also receiving awards were swimmers Abby Strobel and Rob Donisch. Both were given the scholar-athlete award, which goes to the swimmer with the best combination of academic and athletic success.
Boelk said this was the best regular season the team has ever had, and it isn’t over yet. Next month the swimmers will take the largest squad in school history to the National Collegiate Athletic Association championship tournament.
