The U of M Bisons swim team took on the 2022 Odlum Brown Colleges Cup on Nov. 5 and 6, where it both triumphed and fell short of expectations.
With Kelsey Wog aging out of varsity swimming, the team had a difficult time earning points in events that would have been easily monopolized by Wog in this year’s Colleges Cup.
Last year with Wog racking up points, the U of M ranked fifth in the U Sports results tally for the months of November and December. After the recent results from this year’s Colleges Cup, the swim team ranks seventh, falling two spots from last year’s results.
Even without Wog competing, the team prevailed, with a total of five podium finishes accomplished by Dora Modrcin, Megan Mozill and the women’s 4×50 freestyle relay team.
Modrcin medalled in both the 50-metre backstroke and 50-metre butterfly, coming in first in the backstroke with a time of 28.03.
Mozill swept up two of the other podium finishes, coming in second place for both the 100 and 200-metre backstroke.
The herd continued to roll into podium finishes with the women’s 4×50 freestyle relay, in which Hannah Schanel, Kelsey Fillion, Georgia Pengilly and Modrcin placed third.
With the women’s portion of the swim team keeping the U of M in the upper tier of the U Sports rankings, the men’s side struggled with the highest men’s squad finish as eighth place in the 4×50 freestyle relay, and Carson Beggs finishing ninth place in the 100-metre breaststroke as the highest men’s individual finish.
With the results of the Colleges Cup meet still fresh, the Bisons hosted the Bisons Sprint IM Invitational on Nov. 12.
The meet yielded impressive results, with five first place finishes — from Modrcin, Fillion and Brayden Stacey — and many members of the team achieving personal bests.
One of the many feats from the weekend included Andriy Usan taking off time of his 100-metre individual medley, finishing with a time of 1:03.93 and coming in sixth.
Another notable performance came from Cameryn Carlos, who finished third in the 50-metre butterfly.
The recent individual personal bests the herd is achieving could potentially put pressure on them to perform well in upcoming meets.
With the Canada West Championships at the end of November, the expectations for the new rookies seem to be mounting under the high accomplishments the team’s veterans keep achieving.
While the women of the team achieved all the podium finishes and made up most of the points, the men have some big shoes to fill in the upcoming championships of the season if they want to contribute to the U of M’s U Sports rankings.
The next meet for the herd are the Canada West Championships which will be held from Nov. 25 to 27. With all the momentum and spirit that is building, fans can hope that the swim team will continue to achieve podium finishes.
