by Eva Dean Folkert
With eight different individual winners in nine individual events, plus a relay win, the No. 20-ranked Hope College men's swimming and diving team downed Alma College, 112-63, at the Holland Aquatic Center on Saturday.
After starting with a victory in the meet's opening 400-yard medley relay with Jake Peterson, Jack Muller, JT Nissen and Aidan Van Soest (3:46.62), the Flying Dutchmen kept accumulating wins in individual events. Claiming first-place points toward Hope's winning total were:
- Freshman Joel Cummins (Osceola, Indiana / Penn) in the 200-yard freestyle with a time of 1:48.42;
- Junior NIssen (Spring, Texas / Klein Collins) in the 50 free, clocking in at 22.23;
- Junior Ted Lockett (Cincinnati, Ohio / St. Xavier) in the 200 individual medley, finishing in 2:03.53;
- Freshman Alex Boersema (West Olive, Michigan / West Ottawa) in the 200 butterfly with a time of 2:05.00;
- Sophomore Conor East (Farmington Hills, Michigan / North Farmington) in the 100 free, touching with a 48.81;
- Freshman Conner Halberg (Novi, Michigan / Northville) in the 200 backstroke, clocking in at 2:04.66;
- Freshman Dallas Fisher (Highland, Michigan / Detroit Catholic Central) in the 500 free, finishing in 5:03.05; and
- Senior Kamaron Wilcox (Grand Rapids, Michigan / Forest Hills Central) on the 3-m diving board with a score of 286.90, a provisional NCAA qualifying cut.
"Joel Cummins is not a guy who swims the 200 free very often for us, but he put a really nice one together there," said head coach Jake Taber. "Conor East continues to show why he's one of the best swimmers in the league with some of the versatility that he had today. And I was pleased with JT Nissen as well. I thought that those guys all stepped up and did a great job for their team."
Hope competes next in a three-day invitational meet at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio from Thursday, Nov. 18 to Saturday, Nov. 20. Taber feels the event will give his squad top competition against some of the best teams in NCAA Division III.
"We're heading into our mid-season invite next weekend pretty healthy, which is nice," said Taber. "We're definitely excited to swim (at Kenyon). The new polls came out this week and Kenyon has the number one team in the country on both sides. Carnegie Mellon will be there as well and they are perennially top 10, top 15 programs. So we're going to be exposed to some of the best athletes in the country, and that's what we want to see. That's going to help prepare us better for February."
