Sports
Swimming/Diving: Bobcats kick past Thundering Herd
By: Sara Nealeigh
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The Bobcats continued their winning streak with a 154-78 win over Marshall on Tuesday night. Strong starts by the Bobcat swimmers gave Ohio the edge to take its third straight win.
Laurin Williams gave an outstanding early performance, placing first in the 1650 yard freestyle with a time of 16:54.28 the 500 yard freestyle.
Ohio head coach Greg Werner described the evening’s race as Williams’ best 1650 time “in season.”
Anastasia Bocharnikova also gave the team two first place finishes in the 200 Yard Individual Medley and the 100 Yard Backstroke.
Bobcat swimmers took the top three times in most of the evening’s events.
Ohio divers also excelled and pushed the only two Marshall divers into the bottom two places in both the one- and three-meter dives.
“It's all about preparation for the championships," Werner said. "The dual meets help prepare for that. They help build confidence, they give the team an idea of what our strengths and weaknesses as well as the coaching staff.”
The Bobcats have won 13 out of the last 14 dual meets in which they have competed.
“It feels great to win against anyone,” Werner said.
But even with only four dual meets left until the MAC Championships, Werner says there’s no “crunch-time” feeling here.
“We feel like we’ve planned properly…When we plan the season, we start at the end and work backwards so we know that were not really experiencing a lot of stress and were not feeling like this crunch coming. We feel like were on schedule.”
The win by the amphibian Bobcats moves Ohio to 6-0 against Marshall in cross-sport competition in 2011-12. Ohio football, men's basketball, women's basketball, volleyball and soccer all beat the Herd this season.
The swimmers and divers will take a short break from meets until Jan. 27 when they face off against West Virginia and then Ball State on back-to-back nights.
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