Sports Reporter

You can teach technique.

You can teach endurance.

You can teach speed.

You can’t teach depth.

In Saturday’s meet with Ball State and hosts Miami, Ohio, the NIU swim teams were hurt by something they could do nothing about.

“We don’t have much depth and we have to swim a 16-event meet,” head coach Anne Marie Stricklin said. “We have the swimmers that compete for the top spots, but we don’t have people that can get the fourth- and fifth-place spots.”

On the men’s side, the Huskies were hurt by the loss of Leon Weed but still managed to salvage a split.

NIU beat Ball State 133-110, but fell to Miami 168-75.

Weed, a senior co-captain, sat out the first conference meet with pain in his lower back.

Picking up the slack left by Weed was Andres Schonek and Martin Lundgren.

Schonek picked up two first-place finishes including a time of 4:37.09 in the 500-yard freestyle. The time was good enough for a first-place finish and a three-second win over defending Mid-American Conference Champion John Carroll.

Lundgren chipped in with two second-place finishes in the 200-yard butterfly (1:56.76) and the 200-yard breaststroke (2:13.31). The two finishes were the best of the year for Lundgren.

“We thought things went pretty well on the men’s side,” Stricklin said. “Andres Schonek had great swims and I’m really pleased with how Martin Lundgren swam, he had a phenomenal meet.”

Unfortunately, the women did not fair as well as the men.

The women fell 186-112 to Ball State and 234-66 to Miami.

“The women’s meet was a struggle,” Stricklin noted. “We got a good meet from Katie Leidel, Andree Dallain, and Erika Nilsson, they were our big scorers.”

Leidel clocked two second-place finishes in the 200-yard breaststroke and the 200-yard individual medley. Leidel also contributed a third-place finish in the 100-yard breaststroke.

Dallain and Nilsson continued their strong seasons by capturing a second-place and a third-place finish in this weekend’s meet.

Dallain clocked a second-place time of 5:14.46 in the 500-yard freestyle while Nilsson picked up third in the 200-yard freestyle.

Overall, Coach Stricklin liked what she saw in this weekend’s meet.

“Each and every meet we’ve gotten faster and that’s what our goal has been. I’m pleased with how our training has been going and we’re working on the little details that will make us that much faster.”