The Wittenberg men's and women's swimming and diving teams put the finishing touches on the 2003-04 dual meet season last weekend at Case Western Reserve. With a convincing win over the Spartans, the Tiger women finished 7-4. With a narrow defeat, the Tiger men ended at 5-7.

While dual meet records are sometimes good barometers of a team's depth and skill levels, more often than not they are primarily opportunities to train and practice against top competition in preparation for the stretch run of a season, when championship meets are held and champions swimmers emerge from the pack. The Tigers will get that opportunity next weekend when they participate in the annual North Coast Athletic Conference championship meet in Canton, Ohio.

In the meet at Case Western, the Tigers got individual first-place finishes on the women's side from sophomore Becca Searcy (Shelbyville, Ky./Shelby County) in the 200-yard and 500-yard freestyle events, senior Courtney Galliger (Eagan, Minn./Eagan) in the 50-yard freestyle, sophomore Betany Yeakley (Wilmington, Ohio/Wilmington) in the 200-yard Individual Medley and 100-yard backstroke and freshman Jenny Mulligan (Cheyney, Pa./Delaware Valley Friends) in the 100-yard butterfly.

On the men's side, freshman Cody Nicely (Knoxville, Tenn./Bearden) captured first place in both diving events, senior Kyle Dunaway (Warren, Ohio/Howland) was tops in the 200-yard Individual Medley and senior Steve Rader (Concord, Ohio/Cleveland St. Ignatius) captured the 100-yard freestyle.

The Tigers are hoping to better last year's fourth place finish for the women and fifth place for the men in the NCAC Championships, traditionally the deepest conference meet in NCAA Division III. Searcy, Yeakley and Mulligan have all reached NCAA B Cut times, and improvement upon those marks would be a tremendous lift to the team's efforts at the conference meet and its prospects at the national championship meet next month.

No Tiger men have met the qualifying standards, although Rader has been close and is expected to post times good enough to reach the national meet for a fourth straight year. That would put him in select company in Wittenberg swimming history.

Next: 2/11-14 NCAC Championships at Canton, Ohio