This past weekend the Grand Valley State University swimming & diving teams traveled to Detroit, Michigan, to compete against Wayne State, one of their top competitors, bringing home a win on both the men’s and women’s side.

The final score was 157-142 for the men and 171.5- 127.5 for the women, leaving head coach Andy Boyce feeling optimistic for the upcoming weeks.

“I thought we performed really well, the women really stepped up today and we won a lot of races,” Boyce said. “It was nice to finish the meet on the women’s side with a relay win.”

The women wrapped up the meet with a first place win on the 400-yard free relay with Rebecca Farber, Claire Meeuwsen, Bianca Licari and Kelly Peasley.

Another outstanding performance was Delaney Wihebrink, winning both the 100 and 200-yard breaststroke, as well as Melina Goebel taking three first place titles for the 200-yard free, 200-yard fly and the 500-yard free.

The GVSU ladies had a great day in the water leaving a fierce impression on their top competitors going into the GLIAC Championships in just a few weeks.

On the men’s side, Oscar Saura Armengol finished the meet with another outstanding set of results, winning the 200-yard fly, 100-yard fly and the 100-yard free. Jesse Goodyear also had a good couple of races today, taking first in the 1000-yard free and the 500-yard free and a third-place spot in the 200-yard fly.

“On the men’s side it came down to some close races, we won by just 15 points,” Boyce said “We got three weeks and a couple days until the conference championships so they’re pretty tired right now, they’ll give us another week of hard work and then we’ll start to come back with the majority of the team and rest them to get to peak performance there.”

With GLIAC Championships right around the corner, it’s that time in the season to start cracking down on technique and working out all the remaining issues so that minimal mistakes occur during the conference.

“I think we can improve on our relay exchanges, they were a little bit slow today,” Boyce said. “We can’t be sitting on the block when people are touching the wall at the conference championship, we have to be as fast as possible in our relay exchanges. Relays are big points.”

Despite any minor flaws in this past weekends performance, Boyce is highly optimistic about the rest of their season and has high hopes for his athletes. Both the men’s and women’s teams were conference championships last year, with the men having won six titles in a row and the women taking home two out of the last three.

It would be huge for GVSU to bring home a seventh consecutive championship title, so the pressure is only getting stronger each year.

Their biggest contenders are Northern Michigan and Wayne State, but GVSU beat both of them in dual meets already this season, and although the scoring is a little different during the conferences they have a lot of confidence going into the next few weeks.

“It’s going to be tough to do, but we’re up for the challenge,” Boyce said.

Looking forward, GVSU will be hosting a diving invite this coming Saturday, Feb. 1 at 10 a.m. in the Fieldhouse pool. Then starting Feb. 19, the swimming and diving teams will take off for Saginaw, Michigan, to compete in their first GLIAC meet of the conference.