Ripon College Days

Media Credit: Photo by Andrew Krajewski On your mark. Three swimmers ready themselves for action at a Lawrence University meet last semester [Click to enlarge]

By the end of the conference championship weekend senior Jonny Gausewitz had three gold medals around his neck. Senior Emmy Giovanni also came home with a gold medal.

The Red Hawks broke 21 school records by the end of the Midwest Conference Championship Feb. 10 through 12. The men finished fourth with 506 points and the women finished sixth with 412.5 points in the championship.

Gausewitz, who set three individual records and was part of four record-breaking relay teams, came home with the gold in the 200 individual medley, the 400 individual medley and the 200 breast stroke.

"The conference meet went really well for us," says senior Andy Kitslaar. "We broke a lot of records and we surprised everyone in the conference."

"The meet went phenomenally well. Everyone had a great meet. This is the best team in school history," Gausewitz agrees.

Senior Michele Bergman adds, "Everyone did an amazing job and had an amazing meet. The conference meet is the only meet that we really care about and this season just built up to a great final meet."

Kitslaar says the conference meet was a great capstone for an overall successful season.

"This was the best conference meet of my four years here," says Giovanni.

"Nobody knew what we were capable of," first year Parker Heaps adds. "Surprising people was more fun than winning."

Senior Brian Macak agrees.

"Nobody in the conference saw it coming," he says.

"The key to our season was that we improved every race," Macak says.

Not only that, but Gausewitz says it was also a lot of fun.

"This was the most fun I've ever had with a team in my 15 years of swimming, everyone was cheering and supporting everyone else," he says.

As for next year, Kitslaar says he thinks recruiting will determine their success.

"It all depends on recruiting, if the recruiting is good, then this team can be ten times more successful," he says.

The Hawks are graduating three major swimmers from the men's team: Kitslaar, Gausewitz and Macak.

"It'll be interesting to see where we are next year, we are losing big parts of our team," says first year Matt Stensberg.

The Hawks will be young next year as there will be no seniors or juniors on the men's team and the women will only have one junior.

"The team could be just as good next year. The freshman exceeded our expectations this year, there's a lot of young leadership on this team," says Macak. "Records will be broken again next year."

Bergman adds, "Hopefully next year's freshman class adds as much as this year's did."

The Hawks broke a total of 22 records this season, all but one of them at the conference meet.

"The team is just going to get stronger, Coach Coles does a great job of recruiting," added Gausewitz. "This team can only grow for the next two years because they won't be graduating anyone for the next two years."

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