Early in the week men's swimming and diving head coach Bob Thomas said his team needed to up its level of play as a whole without injured diver Ryan Plantz.
Ball State (9-2) did just that by beating Wright State (2-7) 131.5-105.5 on Saturday at the Lewellen Aquatic Center.
It started with the first event, the 400-yard medley relay, which Thomas called "the race of the meet."
On paper the Cardinals were four-second underdogs going into the event. Ball State trailed the entire race until the last few feet when junior Erik Goodrich beat the Raiders' swimmer by three hundredths of a second. Sophomore Zach Hall, junior Jason Revere and freshman Ritchie Caudill composed the rest of the relay team.
"Normally those kind of drops only happen at the end of the season," Thomas said. "But I was real pleased with that relay. All four of them put together their best relay splits of the year."
Wright State was favored by five points, Thomas said, but the relay victory propelled the Cardinals to a quick start.
"That set the tone for the meet," Thomas said. "That race made up the points we were going to be behind when I figured it up."
Ball State won seven of the 13 events in the meet. Sophomore Ryan Bowman won the 100-yard and 200-yard freestyle. Freshman Jim Lullo and Kurtis Leer won the 500-yard, 100-yard freestyle and the 200-yard backstroke.
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