Swimming

The Hoyas had a busy weekend as they competed in the first two meets of 2008, less than 48 hours apart.

The Hoyas’ men’s swim team was victorious over American last Friday, with a score of 161-112, while the women split their double dual meets with American and James Madison, defeating the Eagles 164-132 but falling to the Dukes 194-103. Both the men’s and women’s teams, however, fell to George Washington on Sunday. The men lost 117.5-104, and the women fell 123-114.

“We’re swimming fast right now for this time of the season,” Head Coach Steven Cartwright said. “The way we’re swimming right now, we’re posed really well for the Big East. We’ve had 31 Big East qualifiers this year, while last year I believe we had 24. We’re preparing really hard.”

The men recorded major victories over American, with sophomore Brian Koh leading the pack, grabbing gold in the 1000 yard freestyle and 500 yard freestyle, accompanied by freshman Hamilton Jordan, who won the 100 yard butterfly and 200 yard butterfly events. Koh and junior Dan Robinson recorded the fifth and sixth fastest times in the 1000 yard freestyle in Hoya history, finishing in 9:57.74 and 9:59.49 respectively. They also qualified for the Eastern College Athletic Conference. Freshman Ray Zomerfeld qualified for the Big East meet with his first place finish with a time of 2:15.17 in the 200 yard breaststroke.

Meanwhile, the women’s strongest performer on Friday was sophomore Laura Alito, who first won the 100 yard butterfly and then went on to finish the 100 yard backstroke in 1:01.39, a tenth of a second ahead of second place JMU sophomore Amanda Hauck. Hoya sophomore Mary McGuire qualified for the Big East in the 200 yard butterfly with her third place finish of 2:14.05, which is also the 10th fastest time in that event in school history.

The Hoyas seemed initially to be placed in a good position after traveling to Foggy Bottom to compete with George Washington, as they grabbed gold in seven of the first nine events. But the home team fought back near the end and narrowly defeated Georgetown.

Koh ended up with his third victory in two meets, winning the men’s 200 yard freestyle. Sophomore Wes Going won the men’s 50 yard freestyle in 22.46, less than a tenth of a second ahead of the Colonials’ junior Tom Pullen. Going also won gold with his 400 yard medley relay team, consisting of junior Goran Bistric, and freshmen Thomas Graham and Jordan.

The women’s 400 yard medley also came out victorious, as sophomores Alito, Lindsay Vickroy and Emma Denvir, and freshman Mallory Kiplinger recorded a time of 4:06.72. Senior Caitlin Colling won the women’s 50 yard freestyle, while classmate Claire Nugent won the 200 yard butterfly. Freshman Ali Christie won both the 400 yard individual medley and the 500 yard freestyle.

“We had some great swims but it’s hard to have two meets within 48 hours,” said Cartwright. “[George Washington] caught us on the back-end of the meet, they swam incredibly well. But some people actually swam faster than they did on Friday, and I’m pleased with the effort our team gave.”

Men’s Tennis

One year ago at the Virginia Commonwealth 4+1 Tournament, East Carolina handed the Hoyas’ Head Coach Gordie Ernst his first loss at Georgetown. Last Friday, with nearly his entire men’s team returning from last year, Ernst toppled ECU 3-1 for his first win of the 2008 campaign. Later in the day, the Hoyas blanked Longwood 3-0 to start off the season at a perfect 2-0.

The VCU 4+1 tournament features a format different from that of normal college tennis play. As opposed to three doubles and six singles matches, the 4+1 format has one doubles and four singles. It is essentially a best of five series, and if one team wins three matches, that team wins the overall match.

In the first contest against the Pirates, senior Jeff Schnell won a tight match at first flight singles 6-2, 3-6, 7-6 (5), and the Hoyas’ doubles tandem of senior Ted Tywang and sophomore David Tillem also snuck away with a 6-2, 3-6, 7-6 (5) victory. Georgetown’s other win came from sophomore Will Lowell, who won his match in straight sets.

The Hoyas were just as dominant against Longwood, with Schnell and junior Kevin Walsh winning the doubles match. Lowell won at second singles and Tillem took third singles — all in straight sets. The two Hoyas who did not finish their matches — sophomore Anthony Tan at first singles and Tywang at fourth singles — were each up when the contest was decided.

Except for little-used senior Bert Baggio, the Hoyas have their entire team from last year’s 12-10, the first winning season for a Georgetown tennis team since 2000, when the athletic department began keeping records. Ernst bolstered his lineup with some brotherly love — the Doucas brothers, Paul and William, transferred to Georgetown after their freshman years at Miami University, and Tim Walsh, the younger brother of Kevin, is the team’s lone freshman. Also on board is Assistant Coach Emily DeCamilla, a recent graduate of Ohio State who played college tennis at OSU and Maryland.

This weekend, Georgetown will play two of its tough non-conference opponents. Today the Hoyas take on Old Dominion in Norfolk, Va., at 1 p.m., and tomorrow they will be in Annapolis, Md., for a tilt with Navy at noon — all within 24 hours.

Last year, Old Dominion beat Georgetown 6-1, and the Hoyas toppled the Midshipmen 5-2, Georgetown’s fifth win over Navy since the two schools began playing annually in 1922.

Ernst told The Hoya last year that he scheduled tough non-conference teams to prepare his team for the competition in the Big East. In addition to Old Dominion and Navy, Georgetown will face tough opponents this year when they play perennial powers Maryland, Pennsylvania and Yale.

— Compiled by Hijab Shah and Kevin Wessel