The men's and women's swimming and diving teams were both at home this weekend for the first time this season, but each team came out with losses in extremely competitive meets.
Although the men lost by a score of 144-95 to Miami (Ohio) on Saturday in Alumni Arena, head coach Budd Termin said that the Bulls (0-2 overall, 0-2 Mid-American Conference) performed very well as Miami (2-0, 1-0 MAC) is known as one of the top teams in the MAC.
"Miami has historically been the second-best team in the MAC and the meet was almost a tie up to the last three events," Termin said. "We competed very well and I'm happy with our performance."
The Bulls were able to come out strong, winning the first four of five events but faltered in the end as they lost the last eight. Senior Jeff Hurst led UB with a win in both the 200-yard individual medley and 100-yard freestyle with times of 1:58.90 and 48.77, respectively.
Junior Luke Adams also had a solid showing, earning the second best time of his career in the 1,000-yard freestyle with a time of 9:47.15. Adam's personal high came just a day after earning a personal best in the same event.
Competitive outings from team leaders are encouraging for Termin, who is happy to see that the team continues to improve.
"They stepped up to the level they needed to compete at," Termin said. "This weekend was a good early test to see how we trained through the fall and to see that the commitments our athletes made during the summer are paying off."
On the women's side, head coach Scott Vanderzell is also pleased with the performance the Bulls (2-2, 0-2 MAC) put up against last year's MAC champion Miami (2-0, 2-0 MAC). Although it lost by a score of 188-111, UB had a lot of positives to take away from the meet.
"It was a tremendous meet," Vanderzell said. "They have probably the biggest and strongest team in the MAC and our team swam very well."
The Bulls were anchored by strong performance from junior Kahla Walkinshaw, who took first place in the 200-meter butterfly with a time of 2:06.39. Walkinshaw also took first place in the 200-meter freestyle relay along with senior Jackie English, junior Frances Stephenson and sophomore Andrea Scharf. Junior Danielle Gervais also performed well as she set season bests in three races.
Vanderzell said he was happy that the team showed signs of continuing to work on things they talked about in practice.
"They continued to grow on some things we worked on in practice as far as race pace and strategy goes," Vanderzell said. "We went in there and competed through each race and we never gave up."
The Bulls hope putting up a fight against the top team in the MAC will be a building block for the rest of their upcoming meets.
"We're gonna take all the positives out of this meet and move on to our next meet at Akron," Vanderzell said.
Overall, the men's team had eight different career bests in individual performances last weekend. Termin believes this is indicative of how the team continues to solidify itself as a good swim program.
"We really feel good about how we performed," Termin said. "All we want to do is continue to get better and we had eight lifetime best times in two days. Most swim programs are not doing that."
Termin added that his team lacks depth, and hopes that meets like last weekend's are able to attract recruits to come and swim for Buffalo.
"We have to improve our team depth and we'll try to address that this upcoming recruiting class," Termin said. "These good performances that we had today will go a long way to show, especially with a group that's 50 percent freshmen, that when you come to UB, you start to get good right away."
The freshman class certainly proved that it is getting better and Termin is delighted about his new class' performance.
"The freshman class stepped up and really competed today," Termin said. "The veterans also competed with a lot of heart and character."
The men's team will not compete again until December while the women host Akron on Saturday in Alumni Arena.
