Barton women’s swimming sweeps the competition, men go 1-1 in Midland double dual #GoBarton

After nearly a month from its last trip to Fremont, Nebraska, the Barton Community College swim teams returned to the Dillon Family Aquatic Center this past weekend with a double dual against Tabor College and host Midland University. 

The Cougar women won both of their duals, scoring a 133-23 win over Tabor and a 103-69 victory over Midland. The men's squad split Saturday's action in a 136-30 win over Tabor while coming up short against NAIA nationally ranked Midland 118-71.

"I'm extremely proud of our swimming," said Head Coach Jonathan Reeder. "The kids came off a hard week of training and produced at the meet."

Elizabeth Spitz highlighted the women's squad performances with three victories, taking the 100 freestyle in 56.88 and the 200 breaststroke in 2:37.52 before joining her teammates to anchor the 200 freestyle relay team to a 1:46.26 winning time.

McKayla Siemiller and Abigail Frye added individual titles to go along with the relay gold, winning the 50 freestyle (25.59) and 200 backstroke (2:27.61) respectively. The fourth member of the relay team Kayla Hennen didn't win any individual events but did come away with a second and third placing in her other two events of the 200 IM (2:33.07) and 200 breaststroke (2:51.14).

Leonard-Andrei Olaru led the Cougar men to a pair of victories, winning the 200 butterfly in 2:03.21 and joining William Spitz, Isaac Panzer, and David Garcia to clock a 1:29.71 winning 200 freestyle relay time.

Rory Smith won the other individual title for the Cougars, winning the 200 breaststroke in 2:17.88 over teammates Christian Taylor (2:19.98) and Sean Williams (2:26.10).

"It was our first meet of the season swimming the 200's and the team handled them well!" said Reeder. "As of the latest College Swimming rankings, they (Midland) are the 8th ranked men's team in the NAIA. The fact we won events, is awesome. Our women's team also swam incredible so all in all, a truly awesome outing!"

Barton will head to Sioux City, Iowa, this weekend to compete in the Mustang Invitational held on Saturday, November 10.