In addition to facing off against stiff competition, the Grand Valley State University men’s and women’s swimming teams faced the challenge of having multiple races in a short time period.

Both the teams responded well to the task on Friday and Saturday in Muncie, Ind., as the men and women took first and third, respectively, at the Doug Coers Invitational.

The GVSU men (4-2,2-0 GLIAC) led after the first day with 205 points and maintained that lead to finish first overall out of six teams, finishing with 753.5 points. The team edged out second-place Ball State University (0-4,0-0 MAC), which tallied 553.5.

GVSU’s women (4-3,3-0 GLIAC) entered the final day of swimming in third place with 131 points and finished in third out of seven teams with 399 points. The Lakers finished behind winner Ball State (6-0,2-0 MAC), which scored 734 points, and second place Marshall (6-4, 0-0 C-USA), which was the runner-up with 550 points.

“It’s a good meet for us,” said GVSU head coach Andy Boyce. “We swam a lot of races in a 24-hour period and some people swam six to eight races in that span. They were tired, but they pushed hard all the way to the end.”

GVSU came into the meet prepared for the challenge of competing in back-to-back days, Boyce said.

“It’s part of our training, and it is good training for us,” he said. “When it comes around to our conference championship and national championships, we will swim well when we’re tired and time well when we’re tired.”

Sophomore Michael Griffith took sixth in the 100-yard butterfly and second place in the 50-yard and 100-yard freestyles. Griffith was also a member of the second-place 400-yard and 200-yard freestyle relays and the winning 200-yard medley relay team (1:34.38).

“I knew it was going to be both physically and mentally demanding,” Griffith said. “I just tried getting jacked for each race.”

Senior Sarah Kosmak, who took first in the 100-yard freestyle (52.96), second in the 50-yard freestyle and fourth in the 200-yard freestyle, said the team’s training prepared the athletes for the challenge of back-to-back days of swimming. Kosmak also was looking forward to the challenge of racing against a lot of competition.

“It’s nice to race against a lot of people and see how you compare against them and compare times,” Kosmak said. “We’ve been training really hard and we’ve been eating right and getting our rest.”

The Lakers are off this week for the holidays, and will resume play Dec. 1 in the Calvin Invitational, where their endurance will be tested again.

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