The William & Mary swimming teams hit the road for final time this regular season, traveling down to Norfolk to face Old Dominion on Saturday at 12 p.m. This will be the first meet against the former conference rival Monarchs since the 2015-16 season after last year's meet was wiped out due to snow, breaking a streak of 51 consecutive years of the two teams facing each other.
The Meet
The two teams will swim a standard 16-event line-up on Saturday, with ODU's divers competing at 9 a.m. ahead of the main portion of the meet. The schedule includes the 20 medley relay, 1000 free, 200 free, 100 back, 100 breast, 200 fly, 50 free, 100 free, 200 back, 200 breast, 500 free, 100 fly, 200 IM, and the 400 free relay. As usual for a road meet, the Tribe will start swimming 32 points behind on each side.
Scouting the Tribe Men
The W&M men's team enters the weekend at 8-1 on the year, its best record since the 1998-99 team went 15-1. Leading the way has been a very strong sophomore class in addition to several others; the top three scorers (and five of the top seven) are all in their second years, while the top-10 also includes two freshmen, two juniors, and a senior. Sophomore
Colin Wright (Williamsburg, Va.) has dominated the sprints during the dual-meet season to the tune of 15 wins, while his classmate
Chris Balbo (Short Hills, N.J.) and junior
Carter Kale (Williamsburg, Va.) have covered nearly every event from 200 yards and up, while Balbo winning 13 races and Kale another 12.
Scouting the Tribe Women
The W&M women are also experiencing historic success, and enter the final two weeks of the regular season at 9-2 overall. That's the best mark in a decade, since the 2008-09 team went 10-2. The Tribe have a school-record eight women with 130+ points to this point in the year, with two freshmen at the top of the heap in
Megan Bull (Hillsborough, N.J.), five wins (26 total podium finishes) and 209.25 points, and
Tara Tiernan (West Hartford, Conn.), who has a team-best 12 victories and 189.25 points. Junior distance ace
Morgan Smith (Verona, N.J.) has also reached double-digit wins with 11, as has classmate
Katie Sell (Fredericksburg, Va.), with 10 wins on the year.
Scouting the Monarchs
Old Dominion has had a tough year in terms of team wins, going 1-3 on the men's side and 0-5 for the women, but have had several outstanding individuals. One of the top strengths of the team on both sides is the breaststroke. On the men's side, the 100 breast may be one of the most exciting races of the meet as ODU's Peter Durisin has a season-best time of 54.95 seconds, just .02 ahead of W&M's
Devin McNulty (Herndon, Va.), while Nick Wukovites has won several CCSA Swimmer of the Week awards for his efforts in the 200 breast. The women are being led by Ashley Brem, also a top-notch breaststroker with an NCAA B cut in the 200 breast (2:13.61) as well as top times in the 100 breast (1:01.81) and the 200 IM (2:02.94).
Series History
- The Tribe women are 51-9-1 all-time against Old Dominion, and have won the last 13 in a row dating back to the 2004-05 season.
- W&M leads the men's series with the Monarchs 25-22-1, thanks to wins in each of the last three meets. That's the Tribe's longest win streak since taking the first 14 meetings from 1965-78.
News and Notes
This is just the ninth time ever that the W&M men have won eight meets in a year, and the ninth time also for the women to have won at least nine meets ... If both teams reach double-digit wins, it'd be just the second time in school history for both teams to have 10+ wins in the same season (1970-71, men were 10-1 and women were 10-0) ... A win Saturday would give the men's team a school-record seven road wins in a row, all coming this season ... Seven wins (counting true road and neutral meets) has previously been accomplished three times, from Jan. 13, 1969 to Dec. 5, 1970; from Oct. 31, 1998 to Jan. 18, 1999; and most recently from Oct. 11, 2014 to Oct. 31, 2015 ... Against North Florida on Jan. 4, the Tribe women broke the school record for biggest margin of victory in a 13-event meet, winning 170-35 ... The previous record margin of 131 points came against Georgetown on Feb. 1, 1997 ... Similarly, the Tribe women are going for their sixth road win in a row ... That would be the seventh such streak in school history, and the longest since winning 11 in a row from Nov. 1, 2008 to Jan. 15, 2010.
