Competition for the Intercollegiate Cup has been in full swing ever since it kicked off with tennis last Sunday. On Thursday evening, a big group of Lincolnites headed down to the Aquatic Center to watch our swim team take on the other colleges. There was a fair bit of pressure on the swimmers, as this is the one sport that we ever do very well in, having won the past two years. So we wanted to give them as much support as possible. And it all paid off. We won all but I think two of the events, finishing with a total of 80 points and destroying all of the competition (Flinders Hall came in second with around 42 points). The Lincoln crowd was going crazy for the entire 90 minutes of the competition. We had some organized cheers, but my personal favorite was when the Americans in the crowd pulled out the Tomahawk Chop when one of the American guys swimming won his race. At first the rest of the Lincolnites were a bit confused as to what we were doing, but they joined in soon enough. It was awesome! Unfortunately, I screamed myself hoarse during the competition, and I still haven't quite recovered all of my voice (4 days after the fact). But it was so worth it.
Some of the swimming performances by Lincoln were ridiculous. One of the guys, Aaron, blew the competition out of the water during the 50 m butterfly. He finished at least 10-15 m ahead of everyone else, which is almost unheard of for such a short distance. I mean, we all know he goes to the gym all the time, but geez... During the last race, the Mixed Medley Relay (two guys and two girls from each team), one of the American girls, Vanessa, was the anchor for our team, doing the freestyle. The other teams had guys for this portion of the relay, since guys' times tend to be a bit faster in general, so you want them to bring up the rear. Not Lincoln, however, and it was awesome. Vanessa had told us to watch out for her freestyle at the relays, but I have to admit, I didn't think it was going to be that awesome. Going into the last leg, we were slightly behind one of the other teams (whose final swimmer was a guy). But over those 50 m, Vanessa managed to not only make up the difference, but to overtake him by probably 5 m. Ridiculous.
After swimming, we had cricket to look forward to. And I am sad to say, we didn't quite live up to the hype. No one was expecting us to do as well as in swimming, since the other colleges in general have better athletics than we do. But I don't think anyone was quite prepared for the debacle of the girls game against Flinders Hall. I mean, with an American captain (myself) who had never played before last Monday, they should have been expecting a pretty poor show, but this was a bit much. After winning the coin toss, I elected to have our team field first, so that we could get a better idea of batting before we had to do it ourselves. In the 20 overs (one over consists of 6 bowls), Flinders scored 114 runs. They have a very good team, so they did well for themselves while batting, but a large portion of those runs were due to mistakes in bowling on our part. We had entirely too many wide bowls (bounces outside the crease before it gets to the batter), which are worth 1 run each, and no-bowls (can happen several ways: the ball bounces too many times on the way down the crease, or the bowler bends her arm, or...), which are worth 2 runs each. Then it was our turn to bat. We knew pretty well that we were going to lose, but I think we had hoped to get more than 3 runs. The girls bowling for Flinders were insanely good. After the game, one of the Lincoln guys told me that the lead bowler for the Flinders team would probably be the number two bowler on our guys team, and we have some good bowlers. She bowled out two batters in the first three bowls. But regardless of the final score (to recap: Flinders 114, Lincoln 3), we had fun. And the other two American girls on the team put in a good showing: Sarah got 3 of our 4 outs (two catches, one bowled wicket) while we were fielding and scored our one run not due to a wide, and Mary did a fantastic job as wicket keeper (almost getting someone out three times).
After we got destroyed in our game, most of us stuck around to watch the guys game against Aquinas, as they had gotten up early to support us. They did pretty well in batting, but they had a few unlucky breaks resulting in our best batters getting out early, so the showing wasn't quite enough for the win. But in the first round, only one team is eliminated, based on who loses by the largest margin (the winning team from the year before gets a first round by, since there are 5 colleges). And since Flinders Hall beat St. Ann's pretty soundly, the Lincoln guys will be playing again next week, likely against St. Mark's (last year's champions). After a few more trainings this week, they should be able to put together a strong showing. Hopefully we'll be able to get them a larger support side for the upcoming game. I know I'll be there.
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