The swim team competes predominantly in the fall and winter seasons. Over the past 2 months, the Loyola swim team has been practicing and competing in several meets at the Mangione Pool at the Loyola Fitness and Aquatic Center and the halfway mark of the season is rapidly approaching. There are a number of quality collegiate swimmers on the team; among them is junior Jeff Rowe.

“So far this year we did not get off to a particularly great start, and our only victory to date is against Lafayette although all the meets have been competitive,” said Rowe. Loyola won the home meet against Lafayette by the score of 217-83. So far, Loyola has competed in five meets and all of them have been competitive in score. Despite the apparent slow start to the season, there are many more meets in the near future including meets against John Hopkins, St. Francis and Howard this month.

This years men’s swim team is suffering from the loss of several key swimmers who graduated last year.  Rowe says the team lost a lot of seniors this year, and many of them were among the fastest swimmers on last year’s team. He also said that last year’s team easily defeated John Hopkins however this year the meet is expected to be much closer.

This year, Loyola is trying to win the MACC’s conference tournament for the fourth year in a row. However, the team knows that notching another victory will be a challenge. Rowe said he would obviously like to win again, but he knows that this year’s tournament will be much more competitive. Loyola’s next meet takes place November 4^th at 5:00 pm at the Mangione Pool at the Fitness and Aquatic Center.