Women's Swimming & Diving in fifth after Day 1 of Wooster Invitational

By Tim Glon

WOOSTER — The Ohio Northern women's swimming & diving team are in fifth place out of 11 teams after the first day of the three-day Wooster Invitational on Thursday at the Wooster High School Natatorium.

The Polar Bears have 191 points after five of 20 events. 

Case Western Reserve is in first place with 502.5 points, Edinboro (Pa.) is second with 387 points and Gannon (Pa.) is third with 360 points.

Senior Sydney Veon (Riverside, Ill./Riverside-Brookfield) and sophomore Lauren Halle (Chandler, Ariz./Hamilton) led ONU with a pair of fourth place finishes.

Veon was fourth in the 50 free in :24.48 and Halle was fourth in the 200 I.M. in 2:12.23.

The duo also combined with junior Kierra Watson (Brownsburg, Ind.) and freshman Marissa Taylor (Granite Falls, N.C./South Caldwell) to finish sixth in the 400 medley relay in 4:06.15.

"We swam well this morning with 28 out of 29 individual races as season bests, putting 12 swims back tonight for finals," ONU head coach Peggy Ewald said. "We ended tonight in 5th out of 10 teams on the women's side and 4th out of 9 teams on the mens side. We had 12 lifetime bests, demonstrating how well we are putting the training work into our racing.

"I'm excited to see what day 2 brings as we will also have our divers competing with us.
We are learning where to continue the focus and where we will need to redirect energy towards to fill in gaps."

The second day will be on Friday with the prelims at 10 am and finals at 6 pm and the third day is Saturday at 10 am and 5 pm. Diving events will take place each day at Timken Natatorium.