Last weekend’s tough road trip to West Virginia hardly slowed the Syracuse women’s swimming and diving team as the Orangewomen trounced the Mountaineers.

The Orangewomen improved to 6-0 after their 131-106 victory.

But long bus rides, rushed warm-ups and two flight delays took a harsh toll on the Orangemen, who dropped their side of the meet, 133.5-109.5, and fell to 4-2.

The Syracuse swimmers arrived at the airport early Friday morning, but their flight didn’t quite make it to takeoff.

‘Oh, it was hell,’ junior Elyse McDonough said. ‘On the way there, we were all on the plane, and then all of a sudden we see them start taking our luggage off.’

The crew informed them the windshield of the plane was cracked, and they’d have to wait for a later flight. So the team practiced at the Women’s Building that afternoon before catching its flight. Since the practice was originally to be held at WVU, the team’s regular pool at Archbold Gymnasium was already booked for public lap time.

Saturday morning, the meet was pushed ahead an hour so Syracuse could catch its bus for the 90-minute ride back to the Pittsburgh airport. This time, the team didn’t even make it onto the plane before the flight was delayed.

‘Was it ideal?,’ head coach Lou Walker asked. ‘No. But it wasn’t where people couldn’t get a good night’s sleep.’

On top of the rough travel conditions, the swimmers blamed their subpar performance on the abbreviated transition back to collegiate 25-yard pools after more than a week of training at 50-meter facilities in Puerto Rico over Winter Break.

‘We were all focusing more on how we were sore and tired from Puerto Rico instead of focusing on wanting to win,’ freshman Lisa Wittich said.

The transition back to a shorter pool and the fatigue from early-January’s augmented workouts were important factors in the mixed results at West Virginia. But Walker was quick to downplay the swimmers’ complaints.

‘Everybody’s in the same boat,’ he said. ‘All college teams are doing the same thing.’

Syracuse will host Connecticut at Webster Pool this Saturday, and the swimmers expect to be well-rested and free of the hassles associated with away meets.

‘Certainly,’ Walker said, ‘it should be a bit of an advantage to be at home.’

Published on January 22, 2003 at 12:00 pm