The Bowling Green swimming and diving team ended in ninth place after its participation in the three-day Georgia Tech Invitational.
Twenty-one swimmers competed in finals on Saturday evening. Estela Davis raced in four final events, coming in 2nd place in the ‘B’ final in the 200-yard backstroke. Overall, Davis placed 12th in that event.
Victoria Griffin competed in the 100-yard freestyle. Much like Davis, Griffin raced to 2nd in the ‘B’ final and 12th overall.
Griffin also finished 5th in the ‘B’ final of the 50-yard freestyle, coming in 15th place overall.
With the team’s first-ever Georgia Tech Invitational complete, head coach Petra Martin said she is happy with how the team swam in a new environment and situation.
“Overall it was pretty good,” Martin said. “We didn’t really rest them at all so some people were more tired than others. At this point it’s about overcoming that and just doing great things, doing things correctly, no matter how bad you feel. So I think some of them still need to learn that.”
One athlete that seemed to adapt to the travel was Daniela Carrillo. Carrillo raced to an NCAA B qualifying cut in the 200-yard breaststroke. Carrillo is the first swimmer on the team to qualify for NCAA cuts so far this season.
Going up against nationally ranked teams and athletes, the Falcons gained experience swimming at a higher level. Martin says what was learned at the invitational will carry over into Mid-American Conference meets and other races later in the season.
“I think it’s good that we can deal with adversity,” Martin said. “I don’t want them to be comfortable. That’s not the name of the game. They need to be able to swim fast and do great things no matter where and no matter against who.”
As for the travel, this was the first time Bowling Green traveled as a complete team for that amount of distance.
“It was a long day on Wednesday,” Martin said. “Because of weather we had some delays and whatnot, so we were running a lot behind schedule. We recovered from that pretty well and a lot of them did a good job on the first day. Some people were better than others and we kind of expected that.”
Diving had been working on new techniques and difficulties to add to the dives in order to increase scores. Despite finishing no higher than 42 in the 1- and 3-meter dives, Martin says the team had an opportunity to learn even more.
“They are still very much at the beginning of what they are learning and what they are doing,” Martin said. “It’s a learning experience. For them, it’s their first time around in anything like this. I don’t expect them to just jump into things and know everything or how to approach it, which is why we’re going to start doing it now to teach them the right way.”
Bowling Green will have a one-week break before heading to the Eastern Michigan Invitational in Ypsilanti, Michigan.
