Facing their last competition before the Mid-American Conference Championship, the Bowling Green swimming and diving team dropped both meets this past weekend.
Leaving Bowling Green for the first time in two months, the team was unable to walk away with a victory against two solid conference opponents.
On Friday, the Falcons traveled to Buffalo, where they were edged out 164-136 inside Alumni Arena Natatorium. Trailing the Bulls by only one win in MAC competition coming into the meet, BG could not overcome a slow start, despite finishing strong.
Sophomore Stephanie Buckner won both the 50 and 100-yard freestyle events with times of 24.14 and 54.22, while fellow sophomore Kara Ohngren took first in the 1,000-yard freestyle, finishing 14 seconds ahead of the closest swimmer. Junior Erin Dilkes won the 100-yard breaststroke (1:08.38), followed closely by senior Sarah Agnew (1:08.70), who also finished second in the 200-yard breaststroke (2:26.13).
Although her team fell Friday, BG head coach Keri Buff remains optimistic.
“We’re matched pretty well with Buffalo,” said Buff. “Both teams are very similar as far as strength goes and it was a competitive meet. I think that the thing the [women] can leave and feel good about is that we may have lost in the dual meet, but we will beat them at MAC’s.”
On Saturday, BG traveled to Akron. The Falcons fell 183-117 in the meet against one of the tougher opponents in the conference.
Bowling Green was led by first place finishes from Ohngren in the 1,650-yard freestyle (17:26.94), freshman Brit O’Connor in the 200-yard backstroke (2:09.67) and freshman Caroline Keating in the 500-yard freestyle (5:07.65).
“I think we are doing so much better [this year] than at this time last year,” sophomore Nicolle Corporon said. “Everybody stepped up and did a great job, and we have a lot more motivation.”
The road trip may have had an effect on the team’s performances this week as they logged five hours to Buffalo, then came back the next day against the Zips.
“[The trip] is going to take something out of you,” Buff said. “When put in situations like that when they’re [the team] not comfortable or totally pampered, they learn a lot about themselves and rise to the occasion. Going to MAC’s, where we go there a couple days beforehand, they’ll have a little more comfort and should even perform better.”
The Falcons will be spending their time training some, but mostly resting up for the conference championship, which is just two weeks away.
