Dukes lose at home, raise money for cancer research

The Duquesne women’s swim team was unable to pull away with a win in their first meet of the season, but won elsewhere as they were able to raise money for breast cancer awareness during their “Think Pink” meet Friday afternoon.

The Dukes lost their opening meet 58-104 against The University of Akron. All five of the women who won their races were either freshmen or sophomores. Sophomore Line Lovberg set the women’s pool record for the second year in a row with the fastest time in the 200-yard butterfly race at home with a time of 2:04:72. This was just four seconds slower than her Duquesne record of 2:00.78 set at the Atlantic-10 championships last February.

Fellow sophomore Jamie Ruh won the 1,000-yard freestyle in 10:42:35. Three freshman were also at the head of the standings in their respective races with Samantha Ray swimming with a time of 24.89 in the 50 free, Claire Nobles with a time of 53.65 in the 100-yard free, and Kylie Dickman with a time of 5:12.01 in the 500-yard freestyle.

Lovberg was impressed with her team’s performance on Friday.

“We did pretty good as a team because we trained a lot harder this year,” Lovberg said. “We are at a better standpoint this year than last year.”
This is the second year the Dukes held a fundraiser to raise money for breast cancer awareness. The team and its sponsors held a raffle during intermission and sold pink rubber ducks and pink t-shirts to help the raise funds for the cause.  The swimmers also showed their support by wearing pink caps as they competed.

“I think it [the fundraiser] is a good idea,” Dickman said. “It gets people involved and lets them know it goes to a good cause.”
Head coach David Sheets agreed.

“It is the second year that we have done it [the fundraiser] and it is something we want to continue to do because it is a great cause,” Sheets said. “As long as we can keep contributing to it and keep making it a great event, then we are going to keep doing it.”
Although the Dukes left the meet with a loss, Sheets was still content with the outcome.

“I think we walked into the meet not knowing what to expect,” Sheets said. “There were a lot of nice surprises but I was pretty happy with the performance.”
However, Sheets expects the team to swim hard next week and looks to come away with a victory.

“I expect us to do what we do every week and that is to compete,” Sheets said. “If we can compete there [at the next meet] better than everyone else then we are going to win.”
The Dukes’ tri-meet on Saturday will also aim to raise money for cancer research, a fundraising event started two years ago at St. Francis University. Last year’s meet raised more than $6,000 for the Cancer Society of Pittsburgh. The money raised at Saturday’s meet will benefit cancer research as the Dukes take on St. Francis and Central Connecticut State University in New Britain, Conn.