Women split in Think Pink tri-meet

The Duquesne women's swim team walked away with a win against St. Francis, a loss to Central Connecticut State and more than $6,000 raised for the Cancer Society of Pittsburgh at their tri-meet on Saturday.

The Dukes scored 137.5 points to St. Francis's 121.5 and 126 to CCSU's 135.

Freshman Line Lovberg placed first in the 200 and 100-yard butterfly, and junior Miriam McGeath placed first in the 200 and 100-yard breaststroke for Duquesne with times of 1:07.20 and 2:24.10. Both were also on the 400-yard medley team with senior Morgan Claycomb and sophomore Meghan Smith that touched the wall first in 3:56.95.

The Dukes had lost to both teams last year at St. Francis, where the host team defeated them by 79 points. This year, Duquesne was looking for revenge.

"Last year, we went down to St. Francis and kind of walked into a hornet's nest," Coach Dave Sheets said. "This year, it's a different team, and they made sure that they wanted to be participants in the meet and not just spectators."

McGeath saw improvement in the team's approach this year.

"I think the meet went very well as compared to last year, because last year we, as our coach put it, were ‘standbyers', and we didn't put forth our best effort, because we thought the other teams were way better than us," McGeath said. "This year we actually put forth our effort, and I think we came through."

The three teams came together with one goal for the meet this year: to raise money for the home team's cancer society. They sold pink T-shirts with the message "3 Teams, 1 Goal" and had donation buckets at the entrance of the pool. The coaches also accepted donations sent to their offices and given to them by those who could not attend. In addition to all three team's efforts, Duquesne also hosted a swim-a-thon on Oct. 23 during practice which raised around $2,500.

Facing St. Francis the last six years and CCSU in a tri-meet the past two, Sheets thought last weekend would be the perfect time for such an event.

"We started thinking this is a great idea to do a breast cancer/cancer awareness weekend because of our tri-meet," Sheets explained. "We can get all three teams involved, and get all three teams fundraising. We were going to do it last year, but didn't want to do it half, so we did it this year 100 percent, and I think we exceeded our expectations."

Quite a few members of the team have been affected by cancer in some way.

"I'm glad that we did it. I know a lot of us on the team have experienced something with cancer within the family. So I'm glad that we're supporting something," McGeath added.

The teams were also featured in an article in USA Swimming for their fundraising efforts.

The Dukes hope to continue the team bonding they felt by participating in the fundraiser.

"Swimming is not so much of a team sport, you swim by yourself in a lane by yourself, so coming together as a team is a really important thing," McGeath said.

Lovberg agreed.

"I think coming together as a team is important. We have to be there [for each other] when something is going through the same stuff. The team has to be [together]," Lovberg said.

The Dukes next swim at Niagara on Nov. 4 and again in another tri-meet against La Salle and St. Bonaventure in Buffalo on Nov. 5.