Even after a tough loss at home Saturday against Delaware, Georgetown Head Coach Bethany Bower remains optimistic about the swimming and diving team’s potential to qualify athletes to compete in the Big East championship later this winter.

“[The team is] working hard,” Bower said. “I have no complaints about their practice swims or their meet swims. For this point in the season, we are swimming and diving well. . If we are swimming well and diving well . I know my kids are winning. They’re winning their races. They’re winning their battles. We’re qualifying more kids now than we did at this time last year.”

The Hoyas fell 149-75 in the men’s competition at McCarthy Pool, dropping their dual-meet record to 0-2 overall. The women suffered their first loss of the dual-meet season with a score of 150-88, leaving their record to 1-1.

Last year the squad lost to Delaware, so Saturday’s defeat was no surprise for the Hoyas.

“We knew going in that they had their best recruiting class ever and they didn’t lose a lot of seniors,” Bower said.

Bower attributed the Blue Hens’ success Sunday to their strength in distance events. “They were stronger than us in the 1,000-meter and 500m freestyle. They keyed in on the distance events and knew they could take the points there,” Bower said.

In the end, it wasn’t just the distance events that lost the match. “The loss on Saturday came because Delaware was deeper and a little better,” Bower said. “Nothing about our execution led to our loss – the kids swam well; overall we had some good swims.” Bower also attributed the loss to the Hoyas’ relative inexperience and freshmen-heavy roster. For the team’s freshmen, the meet was only the second of their collegiate careers.

In spite of the team’s collective inexperience, several freshmen had stand-out performances at Saturday’s meet. Both Wes Going and Lindsay Vickeroy qualified for the Big East championships. Going qualified in the 2,000yd backstroke event and Vickeroy in the 200yd backstroke . With a time of 4:37.31, Laura Stark broke the school record with her victory in the 400yd individual medley, which was set in 2002. She also broke the pool record with a victory in the 200yd breaststroke, which was set in 1999, clocking in at 2:25.78.

In addition to Stark’s performance, on the women’s side, Hoya freshmen Emma Porteus, Corina Kwami and sophomore Christina DiNapoli swept second, third and fourth place in the 200yd breaststroke. The relay quartet of freshman Margaret Kimball, sophomore Katelyn O’Connor and juniors Megan Maragakes and Tori Maffey took the 400yd freestyle relay event with a time of 3:50.50.

Junior diver Katie Oldham was the upper-class standout on the women’s side; Oldham won the one-meter diving event with 212.18 points.

“Her diving is fantastic,” Bower said. “She is having the meets of her life right now, and her diving is very consistent.”

On the men’s side, sophomore Goran Bistric swam to first place in the 200yd backstroke with a time of 1:56.49. Sophomore co-captain Daniel Robinson took first place in the 200yd breaststroke with a time of 2:19.26. Robinson, Going and freshmen James LiVolsi and John Deppe earned a top finish, tying Delaware with a time of 3:25.62.

The unusually small size of the men’s team only made the match more difficult.

“If we had a few more bodies that would definitely help; we had one guy still out with a broken elbow, and one guy just coming back from some sickness,” Bower said. “It definitely hurts when we don’t have the depth to put three people in each event.”

Bower hopes that experience will come with time. “We need to take what we learned in the meets and apply it to practice every day,” Bower said. Special points of emphasis in practice will include improving turns and starts.

Georgetown will travel to Baltimore, Md., to compete against Loyola (Md.) and Seton Hall on Saturday, Nov. 4, at 2 p.m.