Nearly halfway into the season, the Saint Louis University men’s and women’s swimming teams are gearing up for their next contest Saturday, Dec. 8, against Southern Illinois University-Carbondale.
“We have not seen [SIU-Carbondale] yet this year, but I know a lot about them,” men’s and women’s swimming coach Jim Halliburton said. “They are good; they are always one of the best programs in the Missouri Valley Conference because of their long tradition.”
Halliburton said that this invitational will give his team a chance to participate in events that they will not be able to until this February’s Atlantic 10 Championships.
“At SIU, they have a really nice facility,” he said. “It will just be us against them, but they’ve added some extra events. We’ll be swimming the 800-free relay for the only time this season other than at conference.
“I think our best match up well with theirs,” Halliburton said. They have a few more [top swimmers], and more depth, so our best [swimmers] will need good races.”
Halliburton said the match will be beneficial, but will not matter in the long run.
“[The match] is important since we’d like to end the first half of the season on a good note,” Halliburton said. “In another way, it’s not that big of a deal because it’s a non-conference invitational. We’re just trying to get some more races in.”
In recent action, the women’s team defeated University of Illinois-Chicago 134-109. The men fell to the Flames by four points, 123-119.
“Going in, we didn’t think we had that great of a chance to win the men’s, but we came out with only a 4-point loss, so we had our chances to win,” Halliburton said. “On the women’s side, the UIC squad swam great and won more events than we did, but we won the relays, which is most important.”
In addition to Ramirez’s victories in the 200-medley and 200-butterfly, sophomore Anna Larson gained victories in the 1-meter and 3-meter diving contests. The women’s relay teams in the 400-medley and 400-freestyle also were tops in their events.
On the men’s side, Michael Dahle won the 1000-freestyle race and Kevin Parker won the 200-backstroke. Their 400-freestyle relay team also finished first.
The Billikens will be in action Jan. 11 in Indianapolis against Ball State, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis and Western Illinois. The Billikens will host Evansville and South Dakota State on Jan. 18 in the Simon Recreation Center.
