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TCU 360

TCU 360

All TCU. All the time.

TCU 360

Students discuss religious topics in a small group. (Photo courtesy of tcuwesley.org)
Wednesday nights at TCU’s Methodist campus ministry provide religious exploration and fellowship
By Boots Giblin, Staff Writer
Published Mar 27, 2024
Students at the Wesley said they found community on Wednesday nights.

Swimming & Diving: Weekend meets to test freshman recruits

Back-to-back days of racing can be taxing for swimmers, and this week, the H20 Frogs will undertake this task with three consecutive days of competition for the women’s team and two for the men’s squad. The meets coming up will take place at Colorado State as part of a head-to-head meet Thursday for just the women’s team, and Friday and Saturday will be a joint meet with both teams in the CSU Early Bird Invitational.

“The most important meet out of this is the dual meet against Colorado State the first afternoon,” head coach Richard Sybesma said. “The women, by the third day, will be pretty tired, but we’ve got some pretty tough women, so I think we’ll be OK.”

The Colorado State team does not have a men’s program, so the latter two days of competition will have other Mountain West Conference opponents in attendance. Rival conference teams include Air Force and Wyoming, giving an early taste of what the swimmers will see later in the season, Sybesma said.

“This meet is kicking off the season, so we’re not sure what to expect,” sophomore freestyler Natalie Melenric said.

A crop of 24 freshmen are being looked at to rebuild the teams that were picked apart when May graduates left the team. The men’s team has added 13 new recruits, and the women have tacked on 11 first-year swimmers.

“The freshmen give a lot of depth to the team which is always good,” Melenric said, “There are a lot of people to help replace what we lost last year.”

The rookie swimmers will be introduced to a three-day meet before the end of October, which is a much faster jump into extended competition compared to the 2006-2007 season when the first multi-day meet did not occur until the UNLV Invitational last December.

“(The freshmen) will be there with eyes wide open and they’re going to learn a lot this weekend about racing, about a three day meet and how teams work,” Sybesma said. “Because even though they swam in high school, it isn’t the same as in college where it isn’t as much you winning. It’s them winning as a team.”

Right now, Sybesma said he is looking to see who will emerge as the new standouts in each event.

“We have a lot of depth in each event, but we’re looking for somebody to really jump out,” Sybesma said

One of the veterans set to lead the men’s team this weekend is Scott McCracken, a senior freestyler who clocked a 22.76 second mark in the 50-meter freestyle last summer, good for 36th in the all-time rankings.

McCracken has had a hiatus from meets representing TCU after he was forced to miss the conference championships last season because of an illness.

“It’d be nice to get back and compete as a team this year,” McCracken said.

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