The men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams kicked off their seasons Friday.

Twenty hours later, they were back in the water.

Syracuse faced Colgate on Friday in Hamilton and returned to Webster Pool to race St. Bonaventure on Saturday morning.

‘In Poland, I would swim two to three times all day,’ SU freshman swimmer and Poland native Luk Boral said. ‘Here, the meets don’t last all day, they are only a couple hours and here I swim three to four times in that amount of time.’

Though the back-to-back meets didn’t affect the Orangemen’s performance, the women dropped a close match Saturday.

Last Friday in Hamilton, the men won 159.5 to 80.5. Saturday, the Orangemen beat St. Bonaventure 156-82.

The women beat Colgate 128-111, while dropping 124-111 to St. Bonaventure.

Junior captain Mike Anstrom and sophomore Bobby Schelling each won events on Friday. Schelling won three events on the day, finishing first in 200-yard freestyle and the 100-yard freestyle. He also swam in the winning 200-yard medley.

Anstrom swam the third leg of the 200-yard medley relay. The junior also posted top times in the 100-yard butterfly and the 50-yard freestyle.

While the men cruised to victory, senior Elyse McDonough led the Orangewomen (1-1). McDonough registered three top finishes, winning the 100-yard freestyle, the 200-yard freestyle relay and the 100-yard individual medley.

Sophomore Lisa Wittich won the 200-yard freestyle as well as the 500-yard freestyle and teamed with McDonough to win the 200-yard freestyle relay. They joined freshman Vanessa Martinez and Randi Beaulieu in the event. Beaulieu won her first collegiate event by taking the backstroke.

The momentum from the Colgate meet carried over to the meet against St. Bonaventure.

But the end results differed.

A close meet came down to the final relay. By losing the 400-yard freestyle relay, the Orangewomen lost the meet.

For the Orangemen (2-0), the meet was not nearly as close. Anstrom and Schelling took events for the second-consecutive day, winning the 100-yard freestyle and the 200-yard backstroke, respectively.

Boral won his first events at the college level, taking the 200-yard individual medley and the 200-yard breaststroke in 1:56.98 and 2:03.47, respectively.

‘I think they are pretty good (times),’ Boral said. ‘But I don’t know the conversion too well right now.’

Junior Josh Scott took two events against the Bonnies – the 200- and 500-yard freestyle.

Sophomore diver Dewey Shultz won the one and three-meter competitions with nearly identical scores of 261.90 and 261.60.

Head coach Lou Walker didn’t dwell on the weekend meets. Instead, he focused on the future races.

‘We are looking to improve on a fitness level from week to week,’ Walker said. ‘Improved practice times translates into improved race times.’

Published on October 20, 2003 at 12:00 pm