Navy swimming hosted East Carolina and Old Dominion as Navy and ECU split the dual meet wins with Old Dominion finishing third.
Navy Press Release:
A first and third-place showing in the final women’s event of the day allowed the Navy swimming and diving teams to sweep East Carolina and Old Dominion Saturday afternoon at Lejeune Hall in Annapolis.
Navy’s women’s team (3-0) defeated East Carolina (1-1) by the score of 150.5-149.5 and Old Dominion (0-2) by the count of 167-114. In the men’s competition, the Mids (3-0) posted a 162-127 victory over the Pirates (1-1) and won a 169-120 decision over the Monarchs (0-2).
The Navy and East Carolina women’s teams were within striking distance of each other the entire meet. The Pirates took a 145.5-137.5 lead into the final event, the 400 freestyle relay. The only way the Mids would win the meet was if they placed first and either second or third in the relay. ECU led at each of the 50-yard intervals through 300 yards of the race. This included a three-tenths of a second lead after 250 yards and 24-hundredths of a second after 300 yards. That left the race in the hands of anchor swimmers Maddi Thompson (Sr., Jersey Shore, Pa.) for Navy and Logan Graumann for East Carolina.
Thompson had a great opening 50 yards and her time of 24.31 bettered Graumann’s mark of 24.67, which gave Navy a 12-hundredths of a second lead. After posting the fastest first 50 yards of anyone in the race, Thompson capped her effort with the best 100-yard leg –– 51.00 –– in the field to give the Mids a first-place finish with a time of 3:27.65, while ECU clocked in at 3:28.47.
Navy still needed to finish third to win the meet, which it comfortably did in a time of 3:31.19 to East Carolina’s posting of 3:34.32 to come away with the one-point victory in the meet over last year’s third-place team in the American Athletic Conference.
“We knew what we had to do in the final relay to win the meet,” said Navy women’s swimming head coach John Morrison. “We had our two best relay teams out there and they just went after it. Kenzie Margroum (Jr., Fort Thomas, Ky.) led off and did well, Ally Warnimont (Fr., Winstin-Salem, N.C.) followed and held her ground and then Annabel Tomes (So., San Diego, Calif.) got some of the deficit back. Maddi had great effort all day by her and she really closed strong.”
Thompson’s final relay leg closed out a very successful day for her. She previously won the 200 freestyle by two seconds (1:52.02) and the 100 free by one half of a second (51.72).
Joining Thompson in winning a pair of events was Lauren Barber (Fr., New Wilmington, Pa.), who tied for the win in the 100 breast (1:04.13) and won the 200 breast by two seconds (2:18.61). Also earning wins on the day were Kaitlyn O’Reilly (So., Farmington, Minn.), who won the 100 breast by one-hundredth of a second (57.27), and Julie Jesse (Sr., Edwardsburg, Mich.), who won the three-meter diving board by 2.40 points (262.65).
“We had a lot of big efforts all across the board,” said Morrison. “The team is showing a lot of spunk for this time of year. They are getting up and racing hard, which is what they do every day in practice.
“It is nice to get the first weekend out of the way, shake the cobwebs off and get up and race. It is nice to see the hard work they have put in thus far pay off, and not just for our swimmers. Our divers performed really well this weekend.”
Navy’s men’s team began its day by winning each of the first eight events of the meet on its way to recording 13 victories in all to defeat an ECU squad that won the 2015 American Athletic Conference crown.
“The guys came out really focused and ready to go,” said Navy men’s swimming head coach Bill Roberts. “I thought the first relay, in looking at what they did last night (at George Mason) and what they did today with the same four guys, we made some minor adjustments this morning and were much quicker today. That set the tone for the meet. Everybody recognized we were going to have a pretty solid meet today.
“East Carolina has always been competitive and last year they had a special year in winning the AAC. They also have good depth and I think at the championship setting they are going to be real competitive again, so to get the win against them today means a lot to the program.”
In addition to the Mids winning the 200 medley relay, nine athletes recorded victories with three of them notching two wins.
Alex Nickell (Sr., Loveland, Colo.) won the 1000 free by 2.6 seconds (9:31.74) and the 500 free by 19-hundredths of a second (4:35.51), David Carlson (Sr., Brielle, N.J.) won both backstroke events by two hundredths of a second (50.52) in the 100 and 1.6 seconds in the 200 (1:51.30), and Marlin Brutkiewicz (Jr., Mobile, Ala.) won the 100 breast by eight-tenths of a second (55.75) and the 200 breast by nearly five seconds (2:01.82).
Also winning an event were Tom Duvall (Sr., Durham, N.H.), 200 free by three-hundredths of a second (1:41.02); Jonathan Debaugh (Sr., Conroe, Texas), 200 fly by six-tenths of a second (1:48.54); Michael Bundas (Jr., Saline, Mich.), 50 freestyle by three-hundredths of a second (21.17); Joe Kaszubowski (Fr., Whitefish Bay, Wis.), one-meter diving by 32 points (313.05); Nate Belch (So., Tucson, Ariz.), three-meter diving by 12 points (325.85) and Young Tae Seo (So., Los Angeles, Calif.), 200 individual medley by 1.2 seconds (1:51.88).
“Technically,” said Roberts, “every athlete on the team probably knows they have one or two things they need to be much better at going forward, but they also have a couple of things they can be proud about after these first two meets.
“Depth has been one of the hallmarks of our program in recent years, and hopefully this will be a good year for us in that department. We have four really good classes of good guys who love to compete and represent the Naval Academy. When you have all four classes working together, that takes over.”
Both Navy teams will compete Friday at UMBC.
East Carolina Press Release:
The East Carolina swimming and diving teams won nine individual events and a pair of relays as it split a tri-meet at the United States Naval Academy on Saturday afternoon to open its dual meet season. The women’s team beat Old Dominion, 172.5-119.5, while falling to the host Midshipmen, 150.5-149.5, and the men’s team defeated the Monarchs, 176-124, and fell to Navy, 162-127.
Senior Bailie Monahan was the Pirates’ top swimmer on the day, claiming three victories. Sophomore Julie Lajoie won a pair of races to go along with a second-place finish and senior Anastasia Amoiroglou added one victory and a second-place finish. Monahan swept the butterfly events by winning the 200 by finishing almost two seconds ahead of Lajoie with a time of 2:01.26. She then posted a time of 56.42 to win the 100 by 0.58, and grabbed her final win of the meet in the 200-yard IM with a time of 2:04.44.
Amoiroglou won the 50-yard freestyle by 0.18 with a time of 24.00. She was also part of the Pirates’ winning 200-yard medley relay team along with Taylor Hague, Megan Sellers and Logan Graumann. Sellers also tied for first-place in the 100-yard breaststroke with a time of 1:04.13 and later finished third in the 200-yard breaststroke with sophomore Vendela Norrman placing second.
Lajoie won the 200-yard backstroke by more than two seconds with a time of 2:03.16 and then followed it up by claiming first-place in the 500-yard freestyle by over four seconds. Ashley Sams posted the top score in the 1-meter diving competition with a final tally of 242.05 points.
On the men’s side, junior Fran Krznaric and sophomore Matt Mullen led the Pirates with one victory each. Mullen posted ECU’s first win of the day by scoring nine more than classmate Taylor Berkey in 3-meter diving event with 313.80 points. Krznaric followed with the team’s second consecutive event victory by touching first in the 200 IM with a time of 1:53.02 after earning a second-place finish in the 200-yard backstroke.
Senior Michael Dugan had a strong meet with three individual medal finishes and helping the 400-yard freestyle relay team to victory. Dugan took second in the 200-yard freestyle and third in the 100-yard freestyle and 500-yard freestyle.
The Pirates return to action on Friday, Oct. 23, at UNC Wilmington before hosting the Seahawks the following day at Minges Natatorium.
Old Dominion Press Release:
Old Dominion University swimming and diving opened the season this weekend at the Navy tri-meet with East Carolina and Navy as Raquel Couto, Reed Mathews and Vitor Sa picked up victories.
Couto earned the first ODU win of the day in the 1000 free in a time of 10:22.98. She added a second place in the 500 free in a time of 5:06.71
Vitor Sa added the Monarchs’ second race win of the day in the 100 free with a time of 46.04. He added a second place spot in the 50 free in a time of 21.20, just .03 off the lead.
The final victory of the day was Reed Mathews in the 100 fly with a time of 49.38.
The event started with the 200-medley relay as the women’s team took a third place finish while the men took a second place finish.
Colleen VandePoel added a second place spot in the 100 backstroke with a time of 57.28.
Jacob Zeidler added a second place in the 100 breaststroke with a time of 56.32 while Mathews was second in the 200 fly in a time of 1:51.28.
Way to go Navy.. Proud Navy Mom here~