Penguins Head to Indy for HL Championships

By Brandon Terlecky
Jambar Contributor

The Youngstown State University swimming and diving team dove into action at the Horizon League Championships with a strong opening Feb. 13 at the Indiana University – Purdue University Indianapolis

YSU finished in sixth place in the 200-yard relay. One of the swimmers was Rachel Shipp, who swam a time of 1:45.63 to finish in front of IUPUI. Shipp explained before the race what the preparation was like heading into Indianapolis.

“It’s a lot different. We start to taper down and rest a lot for big competitions like this and we try to stay calm and focus,” Shipp said.

After a strong showing at the Butler Invitational, swimming coach Ryan Purdy is focused on the main key: staying healthy and complete rest.

“They were tired. It’s a really long season and when you get to a certain point in the season it takes a toll on you. It is so easy to get fatigued down the stretch,” Purdy said.

With YSU hitting the road, the strategy is still the same with the team. Purdy is about rest and making sure each swimmer and diver’s body is ready to go in big time moments.

“Swimming is a fitness sport.” Purdy said. “Keeping your body rested is so important, especially when you’re competing in such a big competition. We are always trying different ways to get the team feeling as good as they can.”

Junior Taylor Bishop will be competing in the 1,000-yard freestyle at IUPUI and is looking to stay positive heading into championships.

“We’re looking to stay positive at this point going to Indianapolis. We have great energy on the team,” Bishop said.

After finishing in fifth place at Butler, Bishop felt they could ride off of that momentum and do serious damage in Indianapolis.

“We were really tired in Butler, that was right before we started our rest. We did so well and were really happy with our performance there. We knew we were looking at two weeks of rest before we head to championships, and that was really going to be in our favor,” Bishop said.

The evening came to an end with YSU having the fifth fastest 800-yard freestyle relay time in school history at 7:38.42 where Zsani Csado, Taylor Bishop and Taci Miller were a part of the action.

The Horizon League Championships began Thursday Feb. 14 with the one-meter dive, the 500-yard freestyle, the 200-yard and the 50-yard freestyle.

Bishop finished the 500-freestyle with a time of 5:09:35. Shipp finished in the top 20 in the 200-yard butterfly with a time of 2:11:94.

YSU opened the championships with a sixth place finish in the 200-yard medley relay. The squad of Jamie Leming, Tiphaine Saint-Gilles, Rachel Shipp and Casey Prentice swam a combined time of 1:45.63 to finish in front of the University of Illinois-Chicago.

YSU finished the Horizon League Championship with 263 points and Oakland University was the team winner.