Swim squad closes out season at provincials      
Written by Catherine Zydyk     
Thursday, 15 February 2007 
 
The Carleton University Ravens swim team made a splash at the Ontario 
University Athletics (OUA) provincial championships hosted by Guelph 
University Feb. 9-11. 

The Ravens competed against 13 other schools, including teams from Laurentian, 
Trent, Waterloo and Brock University.

Carleton finished ninth in the men's division and tied for tenth on the 
women's side. 

It's the third year in a row that the women's team has finished in tenth 
place, said Carleton head coach Lynn Marshall.

"We were hoping to get ninth this year. On the first day we were close but 
we couldn't hold onto it," she said.

Raven Trevor McLoughlin grabbed 30 points for Carleton's male team while 
teammate Greg McKay snatched another 20 points. 

Heather Macdonald, Val Torontow, Luz Osoria and Karli McKinnon were 
Carleton's highest scoring female swimmers.

These four women also set a Carleton varsity record in the 200-metre medley 
relay with a time of 2:08.29.

Twenty-five of the 26 swimmers Carleton sent achieved personal season best 
times. Twenty-four of those swimmers broke personal best times from set in 
previous years with the Ravens. 

Macdonald was 0.06 seconds away from a national standard time in her 50-metre 
breastroke. 

Ashley Pouloit, captain of the women's team, said she felt the team did 
"quite well." 

"We were really pumped to be there. There were a lot of personal bests which 
kept us going." 

Marshall said the biggest challenge during the meet was keeping energy 
levels up throughout the three days of competition. 

"It was difficult for everybody to spend long days at the pool," she said. 
"By the third day the challenge was to race fast." 

McLoughlin, assistant captain of the men's squad, said team spirit kept the 
Ravens going strong until the end of the meet. 

"It was definitely tiring. But we kept the team spirit up throughout the 
entire [meet]. There were always people cheering when people were swimming," 
he said. 

The meet marked the last competition of the season for the Ravens. It was a 
decent season for the Ravens, despite the fact the team lost six men after 
graduation last year, said Marshall.

"[It was] hard reworking the team after last year, but we did it," Pouliot 
added.