Marauder Sports Roundup: February 13

​[Cover Photo: Kevin Mackinnon]

This week’s article is a celebration of the lesser-knowns in the world of Marauder sports. It’s easy to follow along with basketball, football, volleyball, and the other sports that play once or twice a week. However, when you’re looking at track, swimming, or wrestling (which we talked about last week), there’s only a few meets every season. What they lack in frequency, though, they make up for in size; these are massive gatherings of athletes from all different schools. Naturally, along with that comes an ocean of results that can be daunting to sift through.

Lucky for you, I’m such a nice guy that I’ve done all the legwork for you! You can just skim through to catch up on the latest and do your duty as a Marauder fan. While these sports might not be the centre of attention year-round, they still know how to claim the spotlight when the time is right. Both the track and swimming teams and are getting set to make noise at a national level.

Track and Field Dominates the Relay

 Track-and-field was in Windsor this weekend for their third regular season indoor meet of the year. Though the season has been short, the Marauders have made a strong impression. This meet was no exception; the team truly lived up to their successes at the January 25th meet in Michigan. Alex Drover has once again set the bar in individual events for the Marauders, winning the 1500m off a personal best time of 3:54.77. Sergio Raez Villanueva finished sixth and also set a personal benchmark at 3:54.77.

Those two joined Gustav Finley and Ryan Korol in a winning push for the 4x800m relay; the team of four ran the third-fastest time in the country. Dylan Alick, Evan Ubene, and David Merchant also posted impressive times. Alick and Ubene finished 6th and 9th in the 3000m; Marchant placed 10th in the 1000m.

Morgan McKeown and Caroline Forbes ran the 1500m on the women’s side, finishing 6th and 8th respectively. Those two also joined the relay fun, pairing up with Kaylee White and Olivia MacAskill to form a squad that went on to win second place in the 4x800m relay.

Track-and-field will now hit the road to Beantown, with the Boston University Valentine Invitational coming up February 14th and 15th. The Boston meet will be their final regular season event; OUA championships will be in Toronto the week after.

Swimming Performs Big at OUA Championships

Last week, the Marauders Swim Team headed to Toronto for the OUA Championships, a three-day swimming extravaganza at the Pan Am Sports Centre. The home team, the Toronto Varsity Blues, took  the 200m freestyle relay in both divisions on day one. Western stole their spotlight by taking the day’s remaining gold medals. While blue and purple  stole the headlines, the Marauders locked down second place on the women’s side and third on the men’s.

​[Photo: Kevin Mackinnon]

Isabelle Lei was the star of the day; she took silver in the 200m freestyle, an improvement on last year’s bronze, and also netted herself a bronze in the 400m medley relay. Newcomer Cameron Johnsen also made a splash when he snagged a  silver in the 100m breaststroke in his first-ever OUA Championship appearance.

[Photo: Kevin Mackinnon]

Day two proved yet another good day for Toronto, who nabbed a staggering 11 gold medals. Western also kept up the pace, taking Mac’s second-place spot in the women’s division. It was not for lack of effort on the Marauders’ part, though! Emma Schlyter kept Mac in the race by taking  bronze in the 400m relay and silver in the 800m freestyle relay later that day.

The men’s squad, meanwhile, held firm at third. Cameron Johnsen and Ian Mackinnon both took another bronze, Johnsen in the 200m breaststroke and Mackinnon in the 100m backstroke; that was the second medal of the weekend for both swimmers.

[Photo: Kevin Mackinnon]

Toronto showed no sign of slowing down on day three. They emerged victorious from both the men’s and women’s championships for the seventh year in a row. Veronica Nichol and Isabelle Lei both finished the trip strong with bronze medals on the final day. Mitch Muizelaar also earned Mac a  final silver for the road in the men’s 1500m freestyle. Muizelaar posted a winning time of 15:43.87, but fell victim to a OUA-record effort by Sebastian Paulins of Western.

[Photo: Kevin Mackinnon]

On a happier note, Men’s swimming coach Grey Fairley was named OUA coach of the year. Mitchell Muizelaar earned an Award of Distinction and was named Marauder of the Week alongside teammate Isabelle Lei. The Mac women’s team also earned a spot on the USports Top 10 for the first time this year, in recognition of their great outing. Despite not taking the big prize, our swimmers still have plenty to celebrate.

[Photo: Kevin Mackinnon]

Duncan Simmons is the CFMU Sports Director and a 3rd year communications student from Vancouver, BC. He is the author of the Marauder Sports Roundup, released weekly on Wednesdays. Lover of all sports and all sports fans. Contact him at: cfmusport@msu.mcmaster.ca.