The Johns Hopkins men's swim team entered last Saturday's dual meet against Kenyon with an impressive statistic to their credit: They had won 65 straight dual meet against Division III opponents, a streak that began in the 1989-90 season.
Yet their away meet pitted them against Kenyon College, a program with an even more amazing active streak.
Kenyon has won an amazing 26 consecutive Division III NCAA Championships. The second-longest active championship streak in any NCAA division belongs to Methodist College, who has won eight straight Division III women's golf titles.
This time, the team with the more impressive streak prevailed. Despite a score of excellent performances, the Blue Jays lost in their last dual meet of the season, 130-97.
"Our guys swam very well at Kenyon," said head coach George Kennedy. "We performed many lifetime best dual meet times. Kenyon was very sharp and they were the better team on Saturday. We are still five and a half weeks away from NCAAs and the meet this past weekend has nothing to do
with that meet."
"We swam tired, and there were no excuses," he said. "I thought that was the best part of the trip. We knew the trip would be tough, but I didn't hear a thing about it. When you are focused on excellence, there are no excuses."
Senior co-captain Sean Kim, along with sophomores Ryan Kim and Brad Test all swam to first-place finishes in the meet. Kim won the 200-yard butterfly with a time of 1:53.59, edging out Kenyon's Carroll Bullock by less than a second.
"Swimming at Kenyon was a great end to this year's challenging dual-meet season," Kim said. "The team is in the middle of some difficult training and we swam very well against a great team. I am expecting to see fast swimming from our team in the upcoming conference and national meets."
Ryan Kim won the 200-yard individual medley with a time of 1:55.47, less than half a second in front of Kenyon's Ryan Volsen. Test won the 100-yard freestyle in 46.66, again less than half a second ahead of a Kenyon swimmer.
"Kenyon was a good setup meet for our upcoming championship meets and we were able to see where we were and what we have to work on in the upcoming weeks to be great at the end of the season," freshman John Kegelman said. "The unique dual-meet setup produced a lot of great races. All the guys did really well considering our training and the tough trip in general. Kenyon may have beaten us over the weekend, but now we know how we will have to swim in order to bring home a national championship in March."
In the relays, Ryan Kim, senior co-captain Tyler Harris, Sean Kim and Test placed second in the 400-yard medley relay with a time of 3:27.62.
Test and Ryan Kim also placed second in the 50-yard freestyle and 200-yard backstroke, respectively.
Next up for the Jays is the ECAC Championships in Pittsburgh, Pa., from Feb. 24 to 26. After ECACs Hopkins will gear up for their last meet of the season, the NCAAs in March.
"Our team is motivated and ready to kick it in to high gear for NCAAs," Kennedy said.
"We've been working out a lot," senior Zane Hamilton said. "Our superior strength probably won't be apparent until NCAAs."
