By Ian Round and Alex Pijanowski
Cross Country
At the NCAA regional cross country meet at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Mich. last weekend, Co-Captain Jenna Willett ’14 earned her third consecutive trip to Nationals after placing 10th overall and Lizzie Halper ’15 earned All-Region honors by placing 29th overall. The Ladies placed 10th and the Lords placed 20th at the meet.
“The women did a really nice job,” Head Coach Duane Gomez said. “That’s a pretty incredible feat [for Willett] to go three years in a row.”
Abby Arace ’16 finished in 53rd place after losing one of her shoes during the race.
“I was amazed,” Gomez said. “I didn’t even know. ﾅ With her shoe on, she probably would have been All-Region.”
Arace was able to retrieve her lost footwear, but not without some difficulty. “We had to make an announcement about her shoe,” Gomez said.
However, due to injuries and illness, the men “had a rough go at it,” according to Gomez. Sam Lagasse ’16 placed 67th overall.
“Nat Fox [ﾑ16], our top runner, was sick as a dog,” Gomez said. Fox placed 128th overall but Gomez said he would have been in the top 35 had he been healthy.
Both teams’ seasons are now over ﾗ except for Willett, who will run in the NCAA Division III Championship on Nov. 23 in Hanover, Ind.
Swimming
In light of last weekend’s swimming and diving meet, it seems that the world’s polar bear population has two primary things to be worried about ﾗ steadily melting ice caps and Kenyon swimmers and divers.
On Saturday, Nov. 16, the Kenyon Lords and Ladies hosted the Polar Bears of Ohio Northern University (ONU), whose teams received a frigid welcome ﾗ the Kenyon women’s team defeated their visitors 201.5-37.5, and the men’s team won 201-33.
Many Kenyon swimmers claimed first place finishes over the course of the meet, but Katie Kaestner ’16 and Ian Reardon ’17 were the only Kenyon athletes to win two individual events apiece. Kaestner won the 200-yard freestyle and the 100-yard freestyle, and also led off on the first-place 200-yard freestyle relay team. Reardon claimed victory in the 200-yard individual medley and 200-yard breaststroke. For his efforts, Reardon was named the conference’s Athlete of the Week. Reardon credited his experienced, upperclassmen teammates for helping guide him to this success.
“One of the things that I think a lot of people have talked about is trying to keep an even keel throughout the meet,” Reardon said.
In several cases, Head Coach Jess Book ’01 entered his athletes into the lineup in events that they do not usually swim in competition. He said that, in addition to being enjoyable for the team, this allows each swimmer to prepare for the mental components of competition.
“[The purpose of meets] is to compete in whatever events that we’re swimming,” Book said. For example, Kaestner said that while she usually swims breaststroke in meets, she welcomed the change of pace.
“I find that technique-wise, if you stop what you’re doing and then work on something else, when you come back to that later, you feel better,” she explained.
The swimming and diving teams will now leave behind dual-meet competition, as they enter into either a quad meet or an invitational. Their next competition will be the TYR Invitational at Northwestern University, which begins Friday, Nov. 22 in Evanston, Ill.[starbox id=”admin”]