The swimming and diving team traveled to Bucknell University on Saturday to compete in the Bison Invite against Navy, American University, Lehigh University, Shippensburg University and Bucknell.
For some swimmers, the quad meet served as a tune-up for the Patriot League championship, which will take place in the same pool Feb. 19-22, while the rest of the team suited up to swim fast and break records in the final meet of the season.
The Leopards saw strong performances from the diving team. Senior Shaylee Daniels placed third out of 16 in the 1-meter dive, while sophomore Landon Orth placed second out of 11 in the men’s 3-meter dive and third out of 12 in the 1-meter.
Bucknell was the first meet where the long-distance swimmers were able to race the mile this season in preparation for the league meet. Sophomore Alexander Zoldan broke the school record to go sub-16 minutes with a fifth-place finish of 15:59.37.
Zoldan noted that getting repetitions in the Bucknell pool helped him prepare for the championship, particularly his spatial awareness.
“During the mile, there’s 65 turns, and the walls at every single pool are different,” he said.
This year will be Zoldan’s first Patriot League championship — he transferred to Lafayette from Virginia Tech this year.
On the women’s side, sophomore Daisy Decker won the mile freestyle with a time of 18:02.96. Only Lafayette swimmers competed in the event, which Decker said “not everyone does.”
Decker said the race allowed her to readjust to the mile as well as identify areas to improve in practice before the Patriot League championship.
“For being a distance swimmer, it’s pace work, just getting up there at the front during the race and just seeing what you can hold,” Decker said.
Freshman Ever Ferguson took home a podium finish after placing second out of six swimmers in the 200-yard fly with a time of 2:07.23.
With only 34 swimmers able to travel to the championship between the men and women, Ferguson is not currently competing but is still practicing with the team as an alternate.
She said that she is refocusing on practice after she expected her season to end on Saturday.
“I’d been tapered for a while, so coming back to regular practices and everything is a little tough,” Ferguson said.
According to Decker and Zoldan, those going to the league championship practiced as normal this week before they taper going into the meet.
“I’ve proven that I need to be here,” Decker said. “Now it’s kind of like, what can I do to make myself go faster? What can I do in practice to improve what I need to do in a race?”
Zoldan also focused on the mental aspects of preparation leading up to the championship.
“It’s basically all about making sure I’m mentally prepared for the mile because that’s the biggest aspect for it, I’ve done the training leading up to the race,” Zoldan said. “Now it’s just time to go out there and race and have fun.”
