Waterloo's men's and women's swim teams hosted the University of Toronto and Guelph on Sunday at the PAC pool in a dual meet to open the season. Toronto's men came in as the 2-time defending national champions and looked all of it with some excellent swims. The Warriors were able to capture a couple of events and show that this young group will be very competitive by the end of the season.
 
The team scores showed the women on the short end in both meets losing 57-31 to Toronto and 54-38 to Guelph. The men were able to turn the tables beating Guelph 49-43 while losing to Toronto by the same 57-31 score. Individual winners were Graeme Kemp (Waterloo) winning the 200 back and 200 breast; Jonathan Ramkissoon capturing the 50 breast and Ola Jozwiak taking the last individual event of the day the 200 free. The women's 8 X 50 free relay were also winners in the first event in the pool.  The great promise that this season has, with some many rookies on the team, was not realized in one meet but the signs of potential are evident.  The competitive atmosphere in the training pool right now is going to push this group throughout the year.
 
This is a very young team with fifteen 1^st year swimmers in the group. They have been working extremely hard in the past couple of weeks to get into the flow of training and school and finding a balance. The couple of weeks off racing prior to the next meet will be a great opportunity to entrench some good skills and prepare for upcoming performances.
 
In addition to the meets, there was an alumni meet with more than 25 former Warriors making their way back to the pool to race the varsity team. The alumni won the meet, as always, through some excellent race planning and strategic tactical decisions. The social bonds that were formed between alumni and current Warriors at a reception gave them competitors a chance to build and renew friendships. The bond of the Waterloo swimmers is strong and growing with some excellent young leaders having graduated over the past couple of years and some of the old guard willing to commit to showing the current young team the way.

The Warriors will travel to Guelph for the OUA Invitational on October 18 before beginning a consistent competition schedule.
 
See full results and scores