Results
Grantham, PA - The men's and women's swim teams swept Lycoming Saturday afternoon at Fredericksen Natatorium. The women took a commanding lead early after winning the opening relay by more than five seconds en route to a 171-89 victory. The Falcons went on to win the next 11 of 12 events before exhibitioning the final relay. The women were quite impressive in the freestyle events, finishing 1-2-3 in the 50-, 100-, and 200- events.
The men, led by multi-even winners
Aaron Eckman,
Daniel Wingert, and
Nick Wieder, handed Lycoming their first head-to-head loss since 2009. With personal best performances from several swimmers, the Falcons upended the Warriors 148-114.
"The women were just great today," head coach
Nancy Luley said. "The guys really stepped up and completely exceed my expectations. After today's performances, I have high hopes for us this post-season."
The women's side showed why they are 5-1 in the MAC, picking up multi-event wins from
Lauren Clune,
Emily Reale,
Laura Penwell, and
Tara Freeman.
Messiah dominated the freestyle events, finishing 1-2 in the 1000 and first and third in the 500.
Lauren Clune finished first in both the 1000 (11:20.81) and 500 (5:35.34) with
Abbie Stonelake coming in second in the 1000 (11:58.57) and third in the 500 (5:50.60).
Emily Reale (2:01.55),
Caitlin Magaw (2:06.68), and
Hanna Schaffer (2:06.90) finished 1-2-3, respectively, in the 200-freestyle. In the 50-freestyle,
Tara Freeman (:25.11),
Anna McArdle (:26.49), and
Laura Penwell (:26.60) took home the top three spots, while Freeman (:54.93), Reale (:56.17), and Schaffer (:57.08) did the same in the 100-freestyle.
The women (5-4, 5-1) finished 1-2 in both the 100- and 200-backstroke. Penwell took home the top spot (1:03.43) and
Katie Reiter came in second (1:05.56) in the 100.
Caitlin Magaw finished first in the 200 with a time of 2:19.02 and Reiter was close behind at 2:20.49 for a second place finish.
Emily Reale and
Renee Ormond also finished 1-2, this time in the 200 IM. Emily won with a time of 2:19.37 and Ormond's second place time was 2:21.46.
Other notable performances came in the 100-backstroke, where Gaby Brubaker won by a mere :00.12 over Lycoming's Jilly Flynn with a time of 1:14.67.
Anna McArdle got the win in the 200-breakstroke by more than three seconds at 2:37.78. Lastly,
Laura Penwell also won by a large margin in the 100-butterfly with a time of 1:01.65.
The men (3-6, 3-3) opened the meet with second and third place finishes in the 200-medley relay, but a swift momentum shift was coming their way.
In the next event, the 1000-freestyle,
Aaron Eckman won by more than 17 seconds (10:54.14) and turned around to win the very next event (200-freestyle) by three seconds (1:51.78) with only a few minutes rest between each event.
"Aaron's performance was truly inspiring," Luley praised. "You could just see the rest of the guys rally after that. They all realized that they could swim their hearts out and win today."
And the men did just that. The men went on to win the next eight of ten events, including the final relay.
Daniel Wingert swept the breakstroke events, winning the 100 with a time of 1:14.67 and 2:19.32 in the 200.
Nick Wieder set a new school record in the 200-butterfly, a record he set previously this season, with a time of 2:00.64. He also went on to win the 500-freestyle (5:03.91) with Eckman coming in second at 5:10.32.
Nate Brown,
Luke Sagaser, and
Chad Alshouse were event winners in the 50-freestyle (:22.47), 200-backstroke (2:07.00), and 200-IM (2:06.08)., respectively.
The Falcons will be on winter hiatus for the next few weeks and will return to competition on January 11, 2014 when they host King's College and Arcadia University. Their second double-dual of the season will begin at 12:00 p.m.
