Bowling Green swim and dive (6-2, 0-1) fell just short against Marshall (5-1, 1-0) on Saturday morning by a final score of 161-139, marking the closest dual meet of the season for both teams.
The meet was labeled as “Alumni Day” as Falcon swim and dive alumni gathered at Cooper Pool to watch the meet and be honored after the freestyle races.
Historically, Bowling Green had a 7-4 all-time record against Marshall and was undefeated (5-0) against them while swimming at home at Cooper Pool before Saturday’s loss.
The Falcons came into the contest on a three-game dual-meet winning streak, with their last dual-meet loss coming all the way back on Nov. 1 against Akron.
Marshall came into the matchup on an even bigger roll, as they had won four straight, including a 2-0 record against Mid-American Conference (MAC) opponents Buffalo and Toledo.
The Falcons had a week off before the Marshall meet; however, the Thundering Herd played against Toledo just last night.
This short rest didn’t matter for Marshall as they squeaked out the win off some impressive diving scores as well as short-distance and medium-distance race victories.
The only category that Marshall didn’t win for diving was the 3-meter dive, which was won by Bowling Green graduate student Elise Snyder, who scored 273.83 on the dive.
For short-distance races, Marshall emerged victorious in the 50-meter freestyle, the 100-meter backstroke and the 100-meter butterfly.
The only short-distance race that Bowling Green won was the 100-meter freestyle.
In fact, the Falcons swept the top three places. Falcon freshman Samia Becdach won the race, with senior Elayna Krupp and sophomore Sierra Newton finishing in second and third place, respectively.
Snagging the top three placements in the race was huge for Bowling Green’s overall point total.
Marshall swept the medium-distance races, winning the 200-meter butterfly, the 200-meter freestyle, the 200-meter backstroke and the 200-meter team medley event.
Despite the Thundering Herd dominating the diving events and the short and medium-distance races, the Falcons kept it close until the very end through impressive long-distance swimming and their ability to rack up more second and third-place finishes throughout the meet.
Similar to the 100-meter freestyle, the 500-meter freestyle’s top three finishers were all Falcons. Sophomore Abby Toepfer finished first, sophomore Lourdes Manderfield in second and junior Ashley Fryer in third place.
The last event a Falcon swimmer won was the 1000-meter freestyle, which Lourdes Manderfield won with Abby Toepfer as the runner-up.
Overall, the Orange and Brown were successful with long-distance races and consistently got a variety of second and third-place finishes. However, Marshall did just enough to break Bowling Green’s winning streak by dominating the short-distance and diving categories and completely sweeping the butterfly and backstroke events.
The Falcons will look to get back on track against MAC opponent Ball State next Saturday, Jan. 18, at 1 p.m. in Muncie, Indiana.
