Records have been constantly dropping for the GVSU men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams this season, helping them to position them in first and second place, respectively, in the GLIAC standings.

They’re making their best times at the right time of the year, heading into the GLIAC championships and nationals, where the team hopes to bring home more success.

“Our focus is on staying healthy and gearing up for the conference and nationals,” said head coach Andy Boyce. “We’ll start cutting back on our training and we will rest for the GLIACs, and after GLIACs we will build back up for nationals.”

The GVSU women (6-4, 3-1 GLIAC) and the GVSU men (8-2, 3-0 GLIAC) have rewritten the record books this year, and neither team is looking to stop anytime soon.

“School records have fallen left and right,” Boyce said. “This year, 12 school records have been set. We’re looking to have a lot of new records on the board going into conference and nationals.

The Lakers are looking to continue their recent trend of finishing in the top 10 at nationals, a feat they’ve repeated for the past three years. This year, the Lakers are ranked fourth in both the men’s and women’s national rankings.

“Last year, the men finished seventh and the women finished ninth,” Boyce said. “We should be right up in there with the top 10 again this year.”

Boyce cites the Calvin Invitational as one of the important meets of the season thus far. The three-day event, which began Dec. 1, tested the Lakers’ endurance and strength. The women took first overall on their side with 980 points, and the men were victorious as well, tallying 1,183 points.

“The Calvin Invitational was a nice mid-way point for us to see where we are at,” Boyce said. “We posted some extremely fast times at that meet.”

However, for the men’s team one of the biggest confidence builders may have come from a loss. Earlier in the season, the men fell to Division I Michigan State University by one point, and have used this meet as an inspiration to improve.

“We all swam real fast and we came within one point of beating a Big 10 opponent,” said senior David Hayhow. “I think by not beating them, it helped motivate us to work harder. We always think back to losing by one point to Michigan State and I think that meet really helped bring the team together.”

The women expect their work ethic to pay off with big dividends. GVSU’s women are hoping that the chemistry they developed so far this season will carry over to the GLIAC and national meets.

“Our team is really confident,” said junior Kelsey Vermeer. “We’ve been preparing very hard over the past weeks and months and we have a great group of girls who work well together. I’m really excited to see what we can do this year.”

GVSU has three swim meets left to prepare for the GLIAC championships. The first meet takes place Saturday at 1 p.m. against Findlay in Allendale.

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