Swimmers places fourth at Show Me Showdown

The Washington University men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams finished fourth of five schools at the Show Me Showdown Saturday. The meet, hosted by the University of Missouri-Columbia, featured schools from all three NCAA divisions and the NAIA.

The men finished behind Division I Missouri, Division II Drury University and Missouri University of Science and Technology and finished ahead of NAIA member Lindenwood University.

In a meet dominated by the Missouri Tigers, the Red and Green put up some respectable finishes. Senior co-captain Kevin Leckey provisionally qualified for NCAA’s in the 50-yard freestyle with a time of 22.11 seconds. Leckey and co-captain Charles Stewart, a senior, and sophomores Kartik Anjur and David Chao took third in the 200-yard freestyle relay, and Leckey, Chao, Anjur and junior Alex Beyer finished second in the 400-yard freestyle relay. Beyer also finished fourth in the 500-yard freestyle.

“We use this meet as a benchmark for the rest of the season,” Leckey said.

The women did not come as close to the men in winning an event, with a top finish of fourth in the 500-yard freestyle by junior Jessie Lodewyk. The women finished behind Missouri, Drury and Missouri S&T and finished ahead of Lindenwood by 27.5 points.

“I think the team swam really well for being this early in the season,” Lodewyk said. “Coach Shively does a great job of lining up tough competition for us in the fall.”

Both Leckey and Lodewyk echoed that the team is focusing more on individual training and improvement at this point in the season as opposed to the teams’ finishes at the meets. In terms of practice for later meets, Saturday featured a morning and afternoon session and was the first full meet this season.

“It’s great that the guys were able to come back in the second session and swim well,” Leckey said.

The team is next in action against DePauw University on November 2, but the team is focusing more on the WU Thanksgiving Invitational and then the Wheaton Invitational on December 5. The dual meet at DePauw is scheduled for 1 p.m.

“We have an invite on Thanksgiving where we will see some good teams, and then we have Wheaton in December. It’s kind of our halfway point, and we will try to get our nationals times out of the way there. It’s great to get those times out of the way, but we also lose three weeks of training,” Leckey said.  According to Leckey, the team will rest for three weeks before the Wheaton meet in order to attain peak times.