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Wilson breaks nine records as Scots
take fifth at MWC meet
Release Date: February 14, 2006
MONMOUTH, Ill. — The Fighting Scots
swim teams were not able to improve on their league finishes from
last year, but that doesn’t mean that progress wasn’t made at the
MWC Swimming Championships last weekend in Appleton, Wis. In fact,
the Scots came close to swimming a perfect meet on the men’s side,
according to coach Keith Crawford, and they missed repeating their
fourth-place finish from a year ago by a single point.
“Our men had an outstanding meet,” said Crawford. “We were forced to
deal with a large amount of adversity due to the fact that one of
our top point scorers left the team very late in the season. Out of
24 individual swims, we had 24 season-best times, and we scored
points in 23 out of 24 individual swims.”
While the Scots chased and caught Beloit for the No. 4 spot a year
ago, they had a new rival this season. Ripon, which increased its
team from one swimmer in 2005 to seven this year, emerged as the new
threat, and Monmouth had a slim one-point lead over the Red Hawks
entering the final event of the meet, the 400-yard freestyle relay.
“We broke our existing school record by three seconds and, until
late in the final 25 yards, it appeared that our anchor, Dan
Campione, was going to catch Ripon’s anchor,” said Crawford. “I was
disappointed that we finished just one point behind Ripon (506-505),
but we had an excellent meet just to put ourselves in that
situation. There wasn’t anything else we could have done.”
He added, “The conference was much improved from over a year ago,
and we closed the gap considerably between us and Lake Forest. Of
the 96-point difference between us and Lake Forest, 40 points was
lost in the diving portion of the competition (as Monmouth has no
divers).” A year ago, Lake Forest finished 129 points ahead of the
Scots.
Six of the Scots’ nine A-flight swims were school records, and four
relay marks also fell during the three-day competition. The women
repeated their eighth-place finish from their debut season, scoring
244 points to beat Knox.
Freshman Andrew Wilson (Galesburg, Ill./Grinnell-Newburg) starred
for Monmouth, breaking nine school records. His highlight was the
100-yard breaststroke, which he won in a school-record time of
59.33. It was his lifetime-best by 1.5 seconds and was very close to
the provisional-qualifying time for the national meet. He also set
school records while placing second in the 200-yard breaststroke
(2:13.19) and fifth in the 50-yard freestyle (22.15). The latter
record eclipsed Andy Bastman’s mark set back in 1968.
But Wilson didn’t stop there, joining sophomores Campione,
sophomores Erik Hoffer and Robert Spearing to establish relay
records in the 200-yard medley (1:44.10), 200-yard freestyle
(1:30.09) and 400-yard freestyle (3:20.13). He also swam with
Campione and freshmen Jim Travnik and Eric Pavlacka on the 800-yard
freestyle relay team that set a new mark of 7:23.80.
In swimming, individual records can be set during relays, and Wilson
accomplished that twice with his 100-yard freestyle split of 48.69
and his 200-yard freestyle split of 1:48.15.
“He’s a very talented individual, and he works very hard,” said
Crawford, who was also pleased, in particular, with Spearing’s
efforts. “Robert had some breakthrough performances and was one of
the people who really surprised me.”
Spearing lowered his best 50-yard freestyle time by a staggering 1.9
seconds, and he had similar drop in the 100-yard freestyle.
Crawford noted that Hoffer also chipped in a valiant effort after
missing nine days of practice in the two weeks leading up to the
meet.
Campione added two individual records, placing second in the
200-yard backstroke (2:02.04) and third in the 100-yard backstroke
(55.62, with a record 55.55 in the prelims). He was in one other
A-flight swim, taking sixth in the 50-yard freestyle.
Travnik and Pavlacka placed fourth and fifth in the 1650-yard
freestyle.
On the women’s side, freshman Sarah Christensen (Galesburg,
Ill./Galesburg) was the lone Scot in an A-flight final, but she made
the best of it, placing fourth in the 100-yard breaststroke in a
school-record 1:12.06. She also set a record in the prelims of the
50-yard freestyle with her time of 26.32.
Crawford also praised sophomore Megan Wentzlaff’s seventh-place
400-yard IM finish.
Men's Swimming |
Women's Swimming
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