The men's and women's swim teams had to deal with mixed results as they held their first home meet in two months, Sunday, at the Duke Aquatic Center against Old Dominion University.
With the meet, the women improved their record to 2-5 with a 119-83 win, while the men fell to 2-5 after being edged 124-107.
The key to both meets was in the freestyle events. The women swept all of the individual distances as well as the 400-meter relay. Sophomore Susan Kresel led the way with a victory in the 100-meter freestyle along with wins in the 400-meter freestyle relay and 400-meter medley relay.
"Everyone on the women's side swam well," Duke head coach Bob Thompson said. "They were really loose from all of the training they've been doing."
The Blue Devils have been devoting the last portion of their season solely to training. Their last meet was at East Carolina on December 10, and they spent two weeks during winter break holding practices in Florida.
The men's team came into the meet hoping that even it could still pull out a victory, despite the fact that its practice time had not diminished in the days approaching the meet. Instead the Blue Devils were narrowly out-touched in a few events and as a result came up just 17 points short in the end.
The men were paced by first places finishes from Chris Bollinger in the 50-meter free, Matt Lawrence in the 200-meter breaststroke, and Peter Mackrill in the one and three-meter dives.
"I don't think that we swam poorly," senior Al Hadley said. "They just came in and swam well. We didn't back off on our training for this, and this won't affect how we do for the rest of the year. We think we can still win the rest of our dual meets and finish with a winning record."
For now the teams will put these results, good and bad, behind them to concentrate on the upcoming meets. Both teams have four more dual meets before reaching the most important meet of the season A the ACC Championships.
"We're just focusing on the ACC's," Thompson said. "If we have to take a few lumps on the way, we'll take them."
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