Men’s swimming ended their fall season with a win against host Lewis University 153–101 in a dual meet action Saturday.

Fourth-year Alex Stabell turned in a top performance, breaking his own school record and earning a national provisional-qualifying time of 50.63 in the 100-yard butterfly. He also set a Lewis pool record in this event.

“This was a great time for [Stabell] to put up, especially since the pool we swam in was sub-par,” said head coach Jason Weber. “He’s not going to have as much pressure when we go to the conference championships.”

Several other Maroons won their respective events, including fourth-year Shane Carlson in the 200-yard breaststroke (2:13.37), second-years James Schlabach in the 100-yard freestyle (49.64) and Ed Wagner in the 100-yard breaststroke (59.39), and first-years Marius Aleksa in the 50-yard freestyle (22.34) and Erik Widestrom in the 400-yard individual medley (4:20.36).

Weber was also pleased with the performance of first-year Paul Morimoto, who placed second in the 1,650-yard freestyle (16:36.04) and third in the 500-yard freestyle (4:49.72). His time in the 1,650-yard freestyle was 12 seconds away from the provisional-qualifying cut time, and he achieved this without resting prior to the meet.

“For him to put up these times this early in the season is impressive,” said Weber.

The team seems to be in a good place in terms of preparation for the rest of the season, for which competitions resume in January.

“It’s nice to end on a win,” said Weber. “We can use this as motivation for the next few weeks to put in some good tough training before Costa Rica, because when we get back, we have only about two weeks before we start tapering for conference.”

Every four years, the swim team takes a weeklong training trip during winter break, usually to either Florida or California. This December, though, the team will go abroad for the first time.

Highlights include a canopy zip-line tour and a waterfall volcano tour, but Weber stresses that the excursion is crucial to determining the team’s results for the rest of the season.

“The training trip is always our toughest training period because the team doesn’t have to worry about anything else except swimming,” said Weber. “Those who do well on this trip usually do well in the end of the season.”

The Maroons’ next competition will be a dual meet against Kalamazoo College in Michigan on Saturday, January 10.