By Justin Kopp ’25, staff writer
The men’s swim team had a slew of MAC-qualifying performances on Friday, Jan. 26, as they faced off against Penn State Altoona on the LVC swim teams’ senior night.
Despite being worn down from three prior meets in January, some swimmers recognized the meet as one of their last chances to qualify for their championship meet in mid-February.
Junior Tyler Singer has been fighting for most of the season to drop a tenth of a second and reach the 27.27 qualifying time for the 50-meter freestyle. When he swam on senior night, Singer found another tenth to cut and finished with a personal record of 27.17 to qualify.
“I feel amazing, really amazing,” Singer said after his race, “I called my dad and I heard my mom scream in the background.”
The next standout performance of the night came from sophomore Brian Dym in the 100-meter backstroke. He beat the qualifying time of 1:13.66 with a 1:09.11.
Dym also qualified for MACs in the 100-yard butterfly at the tri-meet against Stevenson University and Juniata College on Jan. 13, finishing with a personal record of 59.20.
While he swam in high school, Dym was out of the pool for nearly two years, instead focusing on playing football at LVC.
After the football season ended, he shifted his focus to swimming and joined the team for meets, but he wrestled with self-doubt often.
“My first meet I was really hard on myself,” Dym said. “I lost the 200-meter IM [Individual Medley] and it was worse because my goggles flipped up and poked into my eyes.”
Dym found his rhythm as the season went on though, and he has come to attribute some of his performance to the strength he gained from football.
“I came from a high school where I felt like a mediocre swimmer and I was always the B relay guy,” Dym said. “But because of all the football workouts, I put on a lot of muscle and I’m doing incredible compared to what I was.”
The final performance of the night came from junior Zack Fischer in the 100-meter breaststroke. He joined the team last season, despite never having swum competitively before, after an injury that ended his baseball career at LVC.
“You never envision yourself taking a complete 180⁰ with your athletic career and then meeting a group of people you’d do anything for,” Fischer said. “Swimming has been a real second chance, and the leadership role Coach Mary has put me into has helped with having a lot of people behind me for support.”
When Fischer finished his 100-meter breaststroke with a 1:21.42, the pool deck erupted with cheers and his teammates threw their arms skyward. He managed to sneak under the qualifying time of 1:21.46 by four hundredths of a second, and Fischer couldn’t be happier.
“It was one of those special moments that you know you put so much time into, and you are able to put all the negativity and challenges aside for those couple seconds,” Fischer said.
Penn State Altoona’s team won against the Flying Dutchmen 142-42, but the Dutchmen have plenty of personal victories to carry with them going forward. The Dutchmen will compete at the MAC championship meet, hosted at the Graham Aquatic Center in York, PA, from Feb. 15-18.