WASHINGTON, D.C. - The Howard University Swimming and Diving teams made a quick visit to American University on Saturday afternoon to face the Eagles on their Senior Day.  The Bison displayed some excellent performances and continue to ascent on the conference rankings.  The final tallies, though, had the women's team narrowly falling to the Eagles, 116-107 and the men's team dropping their contest 153-52.

The Bison were led by senior Ashley Goins (Silver Spring, MD) and sophomore Chelsea Andrews (Glenside, PA.)  Goins, in her first diving competition as a member of the Bison, was magnificent on both the 1-meter and 3-meter routines.  Her score of 235.35 overtook the Eagles by over 45 points and her 3-meter score of 196.77 made her triumphant by over 55 points.

"I was so excited to get onto the boards and see what I could do," said Goins.  "I still need to keep practicing, especially in 3-meter, but I was having so much fun competing and throwing the dives that I did."

Volunteer coach Christy Smith was extremely pleased with Goins results.  "She has terrific focus and determination," said Smith.  "Ashley isn't afraid to try new things and I was really proud of how she executed some dives that she had very little practice with."

In keeping up with Goins two victories, Andrews was superb in her sprint 50 freestyle and her distance 500 freestyle.  Andrews used a terrific turn to carve a first place time 24.72.  Later in the meet, the sophomore pulled away from the competition mid-way through the race and put together a very efficient first-place time of 5:26.28.  Andrews has defeated three different team in four separate events.

Andrews was also the anchor in the victorious 200 freestyle relay.  Led by freshmen Janai Ederaine (Corona, CA,) Ashley Douglas (Missouri City, TX) and sophomore E'lan Brewer (Lansing MI,) the Lady Bison stormed to a final time of 1:42.89, defeating the Eagles by over four seconds.

Other notable swims for the Lady Bison included freshman Camille Dykes (Maplewood, MN) fighting her way to a second place finish in the 400 IM as well as Douglas' determined second place finish in the 100 backstroke.

On the men's side, the team put together some very nice swims throughout the meet.  The fireworks for the team came, again, on the final race in the 200 freestyle relay where the Bison were victorious for a second consecutive meet.  Led by seniors Damjan Strbac (Zagreb, Croatia) and Omar McKenzie (Nassau, Bahamas) as well as junior Steven Lott (Los Angeles, CA) and sophomore Zadok Isaacs (Cantero Village, Trinidad and Tobago,) the Bison men looked very good in defeating the Eagles with a time of 1:31.45.

Howard will next travel to Baltimore to face Loyola University and Mount Saint Mary's on Saturday, November 13th.  The meet will begin at 1PM.