Southern Illinoise University Athletics
Saluki Swim Team Nipped by Kansas In Season Opener
03/14/2001 | 12:00:00 | Swimming & Diving
September 21, 2000
Carbondale, Ill. -
The Southern Illinois University Carbondale men and women's swimming and diving teams were nipped by the University of Kansas to open their 2000-2001 season at their annual 5K Open Water meet Saturday morning.
The season opening event was held at Touch of Nature's camp II swimming beach and is the only event the Salukis will swim out of a regulation pool this season. It was three oval laps in the open water of Little Grassy Lake equaling 5 kilometers in total.
"I think we did pretty well," SIUC men's coach Rick Walker said. "It looked like we had won by a 30 seconds or so, but they nipped us at the end. It may only be a training swim, but it gives the kids a chance to get out there and say it's time to start going after we've been working out for the past three weeks or so."
The men were edged out by only 11.06 seconds with Brian Soria of Kansas the top finisher on the men's side outdistancing the entire field in a time of 50.04.70. Freshman Derek Helvey was the Saluki Top Dawg coming in second overall in a time of 51.10.00.
The Saluki women finished second by a little under five minutes with freshman recruit Leane Pienaar the top Saluki finisher coming in third among the women with a time of 54.18.00. Kansas' Gwen Haley, a sophomore from Carmel, Ind., was the top female swimmer coming in eighth overall in a time of 52.42.00.
"The kids performed well," SIUC women's coach Jeff Goelz said. "It is the first one of the season and its open water, so it is kind of a hard yardstick. You can't really measure success, but you can measure effort and there were tremendous efforts all the way through. We had 14 do it and all 14 did their best and gave their all."
The team scores was determined by the total times of the top five finishers for each school on both the men's and the women's teams. The top five finishers for Saluki men were Helvey second, Ben Bourne fourth, George Oxinous fifth, Corne Prozesky seventh and Joe Neukirch tenth. The top five finishers for the Saluki women were Pienaar third, Daniela Muniz fifth, Dana Morrell sixth, Amber Mullins eighth and Lee Frye eleventh.
