Even though the champion season has not started yet, the Trinity swim team is already off to a good start. After two meets the Tiger swim team is undefeated thanks to wins against UT-Permian Basin and Southwestern University. The men beat Southwestern 188-107 and the women won 215-77 on Oct. 26. The Tigers then took down UT-Permian Basin on Nov. 9, the men won 143-130 and the women won 190-98. This was the first time that the Trinity men had beaten UT-Permian Basin. The Trinity dive team also beat Southwestern in the same meet as the swim team, the diving team’s only meet of the season thus far.
The swim team is happy with the results and feels prepared to finish the regular season well and tackle the champion season. The swim team did not send any athletes to the national championship last year and that is one of their biggest goals this season along with winning the SCAC conference championships for the 11th year in a row.
“We want to get more qualifiers at the nationals; we didn’t have any last year. We definitely want to get Kara Beauchamp to nationals and we are pushing to get relays to nationals,” said assistant coach Michael Schuber.
Beauchamp, a sophomore, made the B cuts, but missed qualifying for nationals in the 400 IM by two hundredths of a second last year. B cuts are times that used to indicate which swimmers could potentially receive actions invited to the national meet, but it’s not guaranteed. To automatically qualify, one must swim the A-cut times. This year, Beauchamp hopes to make it to nationals with faster B-cut times.
“I got the B cuts in 400 IM, 200 IM and 200 breast last year but was closest in the 400 IM, so hopefully I will qualify in that one,” Beauchamp said.
For their next meet, which is the Tiger Invitational from Nov. 22-23, the team’s goals are simple:
“Swim faster, get behind each other more and continue to do our best,” Schuber said.
The Trinity dive team has also had a successful season even though there have been some injuries.
“The season started with a bang, with our successful meet against Southwestern. We’ve had a couple setbacks, with Calvin New’s untimely injury at Maroon Madness and of course not having Stuart Sproul, we’ve pushed on ahead and taken up a lot of the slack,” junior Galve Deleste said.
Even with those injuries, the Tigers managed to beat Southwestern and sweep first through third place in both men’s events, with Deleste clinching first place in both one-meter and three-meter events. For the women’s team sophomore Ashley Heline won the three-meter event and was runner up on the one-meter board.
The second meet was a home inter-squad meet since UT-Permian Basin does not have a separate dive team.
As the rest of the season approaches, the team hopes to send more divers to nationals as well as have previous divers qualify again. Last year, the team sent current senior Katie Sheldon, graduated senior Ruth Hahn and Heline.
“My goal this year is to qualify for nationals again. If I qualify, I am hoping to become an All-American diver again. I also want to place higher individually than I did at nationals last year in order to help improve Trinity’s ranking. And so far the season has gone really well. I have already seen a lot of improvement in all of my dives compared to last year. I am also learning tons of new dives this year, which is really exciting,” Heline said.
Next up for the swim team is the Tiger Invitational in Southlake, Texas, from Nov. 22-23.
