Bowling Green swim and dive is set to take on Youngstown State in its last regular season meet of the year. Coming off of their first loss against Buffalo last week, the Falcons look to rebound against
the Penguins.
“We absolutely want to win it,” said head coach Petra Martin. “We want to be competitive and put our hands on the wall first. So that doesn’t change if it’s a MAC meet, or first meet or last meet. That competitiveness needs to stay in it.”
The loss last weekend was the closest meet Bowling Green has seen this year. The Falcons fell to the Bulls by just eight points.
“I think it came at the right time, honestly,” Martin said. “I think it definitely provides a little extra motivation before MACs. So, as much as it hurt, I think that it lit up a little bit more fire underneath us.”
The Falcons have had a successful season sitting with an 8-1 record.
Youngstown State is 4-6 on the year, coming off of a win last weekend against Saint Francis. It will be senior night for the Penguins, as they get ready for competition in their conference championships as well.
Martin plans to switch up some events this week to let swimmers experience different events for possible future competition in MACs.
“With some of them they want to see maybe something a little bit different if they’re not sure about their third event at MACs,” Martin said. “For some of them it’s just to mix it up a little bit so they’re not doing the same thing over time.”
The Falcons have seen Youngstown State early in the season, for the Tom Stubbs Relays.
While no official scores were taken, the Falcons won nine out of 10 events. Seven meet records were broken in the relay-only competition.
Youngstown State placed third in one relay and finished third in two.
With this being the last meet before MACs, Martin is looking towards the four-day competition coming up in a few weeks.
“A lot of people are going to swim things that they normally don’t swim,” Martin said. “What we are looking for at this point is making sure that they keep on working hard, keep swimming hard every race even though it might not be their event.”
The meet is set to start Friday at 5 p.m. The next competition for the Falcons will be MAC Championships, Feb. 25-28.
