The H20 Frogs took home several wins against both the San Diego State Aztecs and Centenary Ladies, at Saturdays meet in the University Recreation Center. “I’m a happy camper,” said head coach Richard Sybesma. “We’re swimming really really well, really fast against some really tough competition,” said Sybesma.
The H20 Frogs men won against Centenary 68-34, whereas the women won against San Diego State 71-40 and Centenary 77-32.
Joe Ferguson, assistant coach for Centenary was pleased with his team’s performance despite their defeat by TCU. “We’re kind of where we should be, we’re either at it or better,” said Ferguson.
Several of the H20 Frogs are currently competing in the South American games held in Buenos Aires Argentina. Senior swimmer Alejandro Gomez won a bronze medal for the 400 freestyle as well as two NCAA record timings in the 200 to 400 freestyle events according to the gofrogs website.
Aran Bean, a senior breaststroke, butterfly, and freestyle swimmer said that the swimming program at Centenary is still young but the swimmers have been getting better every year.
“Even though most our top distance swimmers are in Argentina right now the rest of the team is stepping up,” said Sybesma.
The last meet the H20 Frogs took them to Wyoming where the men defeated the Wyoming Cowboys 126-115 and the women lost to the Wyoming Cowgirls 146-97. The competition took place at 7000 feet placing the H20 Frogs at a disadvantage due to the difference in air density. “When you don’t train at that altitude it affects you if you race for longer than a minute,” said Sybesma.
Scott McCracken, a junior spring and freestyle swimmer, said “we have a lot of freshman on the team and I guess their lungs just panicked, we came through at the end but I guess everyone was kinda panicking.”
The H20 Frogs mens diving, sophomore R.J Hesselberg received two best scores of and two wins in the one meter dive. Both men and women’s diving teams went undefeated in all four of the events.
The next meet will be against UNLV on December 16-18 in Las Vegas, NV.
