Victory filled the air as the Water Buffaloes opened their 1978 season. Traveling to St. Louis, Missiouri, the Water B.uffaloes overtook MacMurray College of Illinois with a score of 6844. Harding swam on to triumph over Westminster College by a score of 6548. In the same meet the Water Buffaloes fell to powerful University of Missouri-St. Louis by a 40-70 margin. Important winning events for Harding were the 400 yard freestyle and 400 yard medley relays. The Water Buffaloes began practicing in late September and the season closed with the AIC Championship meet in late February. Throughout these practices coach Arnold Pylkas worked in developing each swimmer's form, endurance and confidence. A special aspect of the Water Buffaloes is their spiritual closeness. Freshman swimmer Monty Lynn stated, "Coach Pylkas' Christ-like influence has greatly added to the spiritual closeness of the team." Continuing on in their season, the tankers traveled to Conway competing against the Hendrix Warriors and OBU Tigers. The Bisons returned having outswum the Tigers 78-33, but fell " 1978 AIC Swimming Results Hendrix Harding Central Arkansas Southern Arkansas Ouachita Baptist Arkansas Tech Henderson State 635 273 167 166 145 115 34 short to their arch rivals, the Hendrix Warriors, 89-24. Harding pulled a first in the 400 freestyle relays with a time of 3:53:27. Dale "Goober" McCoy and Edd ie BI ackshear captured a fi rst and second place respectivel y, in the one and three meter diving competition. The Water Buffaloes triumphed again in their final home meet against Henderson , scoring 95-18 - leav i ng a positive feel ing for the AIC Championship meet. . With a determination and spirit to win, the tankers set out for victory in the Ale. At the end of an exhausting, but exciting weekend, the Water Buffaloes had a total score of 273 points for second place, with the Hendrix Warriors taking the championship with 635 points. Some important winning events for the tankers were the 400 yard f reestyl e relay, the 100 yard individual freestyle, and the 200 yard individual backstroke. The end of this meet proved to be a very emotional one as Coach Pylkas ended his coaching career after six years here at Harding. Of these six years, Pylkas' team never returned from the AIC with less than second place. Swimming • 205
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