Swimming’s Final Meet Concludes
LONG BEACH, Calif. (Feb. 14, 2009) – For the third straight day swimmers packed the Belmont Plaza Pool where the eight Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference teams met for the 2009 Swimming and Diving Championships. Tonight there were three school records broken and one NCAA “B” cut time achieved as the Tiger women finished fourth and the men came in fifth.
In their final appearance wearing black and orange Eliza Callwood and Eileen McMillan joined forces with two freshmen, Karie Nickle and Mallory Ryan, to set a new school record in the 400 Free Relay. They swam a combined 3:39.38 breaking the mark set in 2006. Both Callwood and McMillan were on that relay as well.
Ryan added another individual school record to her repertoire tonight as well. She finished sixth in the 200 butterfly with a time of 2:11.26. Her morning swim of 2:11.15 was slightly faster, but both times break the record set in 2001 by Rachel Hendrickson (2:11.77).
On the men’s side Jeven Dovey earned an NCAA “B” cut when he swam the 200 breaststroke in a new school record time of 2:07.76. Earlier in the day he swam faster (2:07.49), but both times break the 13 year old mark of 2:08.80 set by Tim Campbell.
Among the other Top-8 performances in today’s SCIAC finale were Erin Brinton, Mike Wade, Adam Kantor and Abiel Garcia.
For the women, Brinton swam the 1650, just over her own school record, finishing in 17:58.35.
Also swimming the mile today was Wade who finished in 16:54.20. Kantor was the fifth finisher in the 100 freestyle and Garcia placed seventh in the 200 breaststroke at 2:18.44.
Mallory Kaufman and Mike Wong each made their final appearance in the pool, swimming the 1650 in 21:14.04 and 17:33.37, respectively. Fellow seniors Sean Inoue and Kayla Schott-Bresler earned consolation swims. Inoue was 15th in the 100 free with a time of 48.54 and Schott-Bresler swam the 200 breast at 2:37.43 finishing 13th.
Joining Dovey in among the top swimmers in the conference in the 200 breaststroke were Garcia, Will Carlson and John Wensman. Garcia placed seventh (2:18.44) while Carlson took a second off his seed time to place 10th in 2:21.05 while Wensman came in 14th in an improved time of 2:23.82.
Nickle (55.88) and McMillan (55.92) finished 10th and 12th overall in the 100 free while Claire Coddington was 16th in the same event with a time of 56.57.
McMillan also swam in the consolation heat of the 200 backstroke, in which she finished tenth overall with a time of 2:15.56. Zach Condon also appeared in the 200 back consolation race, placing 12th in an improved time of 2:03.59.
Tiger swimmers Jacqueline Steele and Austen Oliver represented Oxy in the 200 butterfly consolation for the women and men, respectively. Steele finished 15th in 2:24.50 and Oliver shaved more than three and a half seconds off his seed time to finish in 2:06.36, 14th.
When all the results were in and when the scores were tallied Claremont-Mudd-Scipps took home titles for both the men and women.
CMS finished with 1004.5 points in the women’s competition followed by Redlands (621) and Pomona-Pitzer (547). The Tigers finished fourth with 408 points slightly ahead of Cal Lutheran who posted 397.5. Rounding out the field were La Verne (186), Caltech (158) and Whittier (146).
The Tiger men were fifth as they posted 326 total points behind CMS (932.5), Redlands (871), Pomona-Pitzer (402.5) and Cal Lutheran (370). Whittier trailed Oxy with 204 points while Caltech (179) and ULV (152) rounded out the men’s side.
Swimmers who earned NCAA cut times will find out in the coming weeks whether or not they will be traveling to the NCAA National Championships, which will be held in mid-March at the University of Minnesota.
