In the final meet of the regular season, Grand Valley State swim and dive team hit the water to take on the University of Findlay, and sent the seniors out with a splash.

As teams, the Laker men beat the Oilers 210-80, and the Laker women won 208-81 on Jan. 23.

“All the way from the top to the bottom we came out and we competed,” said GVSU head coach Andy Boyce. “Not all the races were very close, but they came out and tried to put up their best times.”

Marius Mikalauskas, Mercedes Martinez, Leonie Van Noort, Sam Postmus, Emily Gallagher, Danny Abbot, Ben Walling and Rachel Skoog led the Lakers with three wins each.

Meghan Falconer, Gianni Ferrero, Lara Deibel and Tim Harris snagged two wins each, as 14 other Lakers snagged single-heat victories. Hannah Deak and Elise Tatchell also tied in one heat.

Along with grabbing numerous victories in the water, the Lakers rewrote a slew of records. Mikalauskas set the pool record in men’s 200 breaststroke with a time of 2:01:87, Van Noort set both the pool and varsity records in women’s 200 backstroke with a time of 2:00:65 and Postmus set pool records in both the women’s 200 individual medley and women’s 200 freestyle with times of 2:06:09 and 1:52:37.

Afterward, Boyce voiced his pleasure regarding the work of his athletes.

“(This meet) was really good. We had a couple up and down performances, but to be able to come away with four new pool records and a new varsity record, that’s a pretty darn good day,” he said. “I’m happy with how the last meet turned out and now we’re really focusing in the next two weeks on conference championships.”

With this being the last meet of the season before conferences, senior swimmers took center stage to bid farewell to GVSU.

“It’s been a pleasure swimming here. I’ve made so many friends,” said senior John Eber. “It’s been a great place to be even with the hard times that every college student goes through, being surrounded by my friends made it much more manageable.”

“Emotional. I was very emotional, especially for the last relay,” said senior Faith Bart. “It’s just weird that this was my last time swimming a meet in this pool and I’ll miss it a lot. It has really meant a lot to me.”

The student-athletes know they’re not done quite yet, however.

“We are an exceptional team and I’m really just in love with it,” Bart said. “We really worked hard only two weeks out of conferences and I’m really impressed with the way we performed. I don’t think we’ve ever been this close to being able to win a conference title (in my four years here).

“We’re not expecting to win, we don’t want to get that mentality in our head, but we also want to fight hard toward that goal.”

She also emphasized that the key to success for the Lakers during conference finals is focus, citing past years where they thought they were going to win, lost focus, and ended up falling short of their ultimate goal.

“Obviously we want to repeat as champions on the men’s side and have the women win their first in eight years,” Eber said. “We just really want the whole team to do well and make that bus ride home from (the GLIAC championships) a good one.”

Over the next two weeks in preparation for the GLIAC championships, which will take place on Feb 10., the Lakers will take some time to rest their bodies, then focus on hard on improving their technique. Distance swimmers will work on pace work, while the rest of the squad will focus mostly on sprint and power work, according to Boyce.

“It has been our goal to win the conference championships this year, both the men and the women. We’ve never done it, so we’re going to go out there and give it the best effort that we give and see what happens.”

The men’s team made it through the season unscathed with a 9-0 record, while the women head into the championships with an 8-1 record.