There may be no `I’ in team, but for the Hoyas, individual, not team accomplishments, were the story last weekend.

Despite notable performances, the Georgetown men’s and women’s swimming and diving squads fell to Loyola (Md.) and Big East foe Seton Hall in a triple meet on Saturday. The women’s 165-135 loss to Loyola and 171-129 loss to Seton Hall drops them to 1-3 overall and 0-1 in the Big East. The men’s 179-107 loss to Loyola and 190-93 loss to Seton Hall pushed their record to 0-4 and 0-1 in the conference.

Last year the women’s team toppled Loyola in a 138-105 decision. This year’s loss, however, was no surprise to Bower.

“It’s not like basketball where the No. 1 team won’t hit their baskets. You can see going into it whether you’re going to win or lose; so, you continue to look at the individual performances,” Bower said. “Unless they come out with 20 pound weights on their suits, the results will be what you predict.”

After last year’s exodus of seniors, they were.

“I knew going into it that they were a little bit tougher and a little deeper,” she said. “We lost a lot of our top distance swimmers this year. The ones we have are freshmen, and they are just starting to become factors in these meets. They still have some road ahead of them.”

Team size was also an important factor in the Hoyas’ loss to the Greyhounds. “They [Loyola] have 44 girls on their team,” Bower said. “My kids were swimming four solid events, they had three. We even had some events where only two girls competed.”

The Hoyas’ 25 women and paltry 13 men meant that swimmers participated in fewer races, making scoring points difficult.

The Pirates’ win over the Hoyas was unexpected and disappointing.

“[Seton Hall] is a team we thought we could beat,” Bower said. “I thought the meet would be a little closer with them. I think we started to roll on them in the second half, but they had already taken the meet away from us. They hit us hard on the distance events, went one, two, three both distance events on us.”

As well as failing to compete in distance, Georgetown hit an unexpected bump when the absence of junior Claire Nugent, who was on the injured list for the meet, doomed Georgetown’s best chances in the butterfly events.

After Saturday’s meet, the Hoyas attempted to gauge their standings in the Big East by comparing themselves to Seton Hall. “They are no bigger than us, but they are a scholarship program, so they have a little more talent,” Bower said. “On the men’s side, they’ve been very competitive, probably in the top six. On the women’s side they’re someone we try to beat. There’s still a big possibility that we could take them [in the rest of the season].”

While even more shorthanded than the swimmers, the divers fared better than their stroking counterparts. Sophomore Michael cWilliams posted his first 2006 wins in both the one- and three-meter diving events.

“He did train in the summer and he looked good, but the difference is that fine tuning going into the competition,” Bower said. “He was a little rusty in the competition end, but had been training hard, and this weekend he just put it all together.”

Other than divers, the freshmen provided strength for the Hoyas.

On the men’s swimming side, freshman Brian Koh took the 200-yard individual medley with a time of 2:01.96. Freshman Wes Going qualified for the Big East championship in the 100-m backstroke and sophomore co-captain Daniel Robinson qualified in the 200-m backstroke.

For the women’s squad, freshman Laura Stark swam to first place in the 200-yd breaststroke, 200-yd breaststroke and 200-yd individual medley, qualifying for the Big East championship in the 200-yd individual medley event. Freshman Laura Alito took first place in the 100-yd butterfly with a time of 58.65, which qualified her for the conference championship.

Freshmen Emma Porteus and Lindsay Vickroy also qualified for the Big East championship in the 100- and 200-yd breaststroke and the 100-yd freestyle events, respectively.

Thus far, six women and four men have qualified for the Big East championship. All of the women have qualified in multiple events. Of the 10, seven of the qualifiers are freshmen.

As for the upperclassmen, Bower said, “They took a little extra time off in the summer; it takes a little time off to get back into their form. The freshmen were competing and training in the summer. If the upperclassmen didn’t compete, it really matters as far as getting into their racing form. You can train all you want, but the key part is learning how to race. The upperclassmen are on the cusp of qualifying – within a tenth of a second or a second. They train as hard, but as far as the competition aspect, they’re still getting back into it.”

Regardless of Saturday’s losses, Bower continued to point to qualifying for the Big East championship as a motivator for Georgetown in upcoming meets.

“There is a little bit of an air of disappointment, but everybody has to look beyond the loss, and we’re swimming better; we’re swimming fast,” Bower said

Georgetown will play host to William and Mary at McCarthy Pool on Saturday at 2 p.m.