A week away from the Mid-American Conference championships, some of Ball State's women swimmers will instead compete at the Midwest Classic at the IU Natatorium in Indianapolis.
Only five swimmers -- Ericka and Jessica Nance, Nora Lucas, Bethany Fortuna and Ashley Zastrow - will be competing for Ball State. This weekend's meet will be the five swimmers' championship meet, because they will not be swimming at the MAC championships. Only 18 swimmers and two divers are sent to the conference champions.
"It's for their own individual performance, to try to get a season-ending fast time," said coach Laura Seibold-Caudill. "They set goals for themselves (at the beginning of the year) and that's what this meet is for."
The Cardinals will swim in the mornings for the preliminaries and, unlike the other 11 schools competing, won't receive points as a team.
Ball State (11-5, 4-4 MAC) originally finished the dual meet season with a 10-6 record overall and 3-5 record against MAC competition. However, after it was discovered Akron had used an ineligible swimmer, freshman Danielle Beland, for its first three meets of the season -- including against Ball State -- the Cardinals were awarded a 160-140 win. Beland, who Seibold-Caudill said is Akron's best swimmer, won three events and helped the 400-yard medley relay team defeat the Cardinals.
Beland did not finish the required paperwork in time to become eligible to compete at the start of the season. Seibold-Caudill knew about Beland's ineligibility before the recent confirmation.
"The bad thing is you don't find out about it until months later, and the excitement of it is not going to be there. Yeah, it's kinda nice we won, but we've not really thought much about it," she said. "But it helps out our record."
Next weekend, the MAC championships will be held in Oxford, Ohio. Host Miami, with a 12-1 record overall and 8-0 record in the MAC, is the favorite to repeat as champion. Seibold-Caudill said at the beginning of the season that she hopes to improve one spot from last year's finish of fifth.
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