Swim teams battle Virginia, Penn State in dual meet

Following the pattern of challenging and competitive meets to start off the season, both men and women Hoosier swimmers faced off against highly ranked Virginia and Big Ten opponent Penn State.

Led by sophomore Eric Ress and junior Alyssa Vavra, both Hoosier teams fell to the tough Virginia squad. The women beat the Nittany Lions 195-158, and the men’s results were unavailable.

The men lost to Virginia 194-159, and the women lost 207-144.

Ress won the 200-yard individual medley, the 200-yard backstroke and the 100-yard backstroke. He was also part of a relay team that won the 400-yard medley relay.

Vavra’s weekend consisted of victories in the 200-yard individual medley, the 200-yard breaststroke, the 100-yard breaststroke and the 400- and 200-yard individual medleys.

“The people who were the most confident performed well,” IU coach Ray Looze said. “And the people who came into this competition expecting to win were the ones who won or got second.”

Junior Gabby Agostino, who earned Big Ten Diver of the Week on Nov. 3, won both the 1-meter and 3-meter diving competitions. Senior David Piercy won the 3-meter competition with fellow Hoosier, freshman Darian Schmidt, coming in second. The two finished first and second in the 1-meter diving bout as well, and Schmidt took first.

Looze said he wants to see an improved sense of intensity in practice if the teams want to finish well in the upcoming Hoosierland Open on Dec. 3 in Bloomington.

“If we want either the men or the women to finish in the top 10, we’ve got some work to do,” Looze said. “We’ve got to train harder so we can prove ourselves to be able to swim with this level of competition and come out on top.”