The Illinois Wesleyan University swim and dive team admitted defeat to Depauw University on Friday, Nov. 8 at Fort Natatorium. Despite this being the second loss of the season, the Titans feel optimistic about the rest of their season.
IWU’s women placed third in the 400-yard medley relay (4:20.39) thanks to the efforts of sophomore Sam Borre, junior Kayleigh Kuschewski and first-years Isabella Cano and Julia Jozwiak.
“I feel very positive about the rest of this season. It’s exciting coming out of high school and adjusting to having new coaches, new routines and new friends. Having all of them cheer for me really motivated me to try my hardest and push myself. I’m glad the coaches feel very positive,” Jozwiak said.
“The team is right where they need to be in the training and they are starting to reap some of the benefits in the meets,” said men’s and women’s head swimming and diving coach Teresa Fish.
The men’s swimmers ranked fourth in the 400-yard medley relay (3:55.02) after first years Tate Thomas, Ben Huk, Jacob Nacional and senior Carter Dilger swam against the Tigers. Dilger placed second in the 200-yard freestyle and butterfly, with times of 1:51.47 and 2:03.98, respectively.
“Depauw has a much larger team than us, but we were able to put the blinders on and performed better than expected,” Dilger said. “It is scary going against a team with 50+ swimmers, but we did not let that stop us. This was my first meet doing my main event, the 200 butterfly, so it was good to get back to speed and see what to work on for midseason. We’ll spend a few days up in Wisconsin, which is where a lot of the team bonding happens. Everyone is optimistic for the season, especially our coaches. We might be a small team, but I think it’s great because we all know each other really well and we support each other,” Dilger said.
First-year Titan divers Sarah Worsley and David Ren both placed first in the one-meter diving competition. This achievement landed Worsley 105.80 points for the women and Ren scored 122.00 for the men.
“Everyone is making small improvements. I’m so glad the first-years get to try new events and see how they do. It was nice having all of our friends cheer us on. I hope that our friends support us for the IWU Invite in two weeks,” Dilger said.
The annual IWU Invite kicks off at 1 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 23 at Fort Natatorium.