WHITTIER, Calif. - On day two of the 2015 Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC) Swimming & Diving Championships hosted by Cal Lutheran at Whittier College more records fell and numerous NCAA 'B' cuts were achieved.
The Claremont-Mudd-Scripps men's and women's teams both increased their respective leads with more victories.
For the women, CMS (422) opens the gap on Pomona-Pitzer (360) as the Sagehens leapt into second. Redlands (278) follows in third. Whittier (184) remains fourth and La Verne moves into fifth with 164. Occidental (154) sits in sixth and Chapman (135), Cal Lutheran (74) and Caltech (55) round out the field.
For the men, CMS leads the team standings with a tally of 431.5, with Pomona-Pitzer (296.5) maintaining second. Cal Lutheran jumped into third with 220 points. Redlands (216) remained fourth and Whittier climbed to fifth with 173. Occidental (163) is sixth and Chapman (123) is seventh while La Verne 112 and Caltech are tied with 112 apiece.
After a morning preliminary session that spanned two and a half hours, the finals got going beneath a gorgeous orange and pink sky at the Lillian Slade Aquatics Center tonight.
Prior to swimming events, the men's three-meter diving finals featured a repeat champion in Claremont-Mudd-Scripps senior James Stevick who headlined a group of five NCAA Regional qualifiers. Read more about the diving finals here.
The women opened the session with the 500 free that belonged to the Sagehens as Pomona-Pitzer swept the podium. The duo of Kelsey Thomas and Vee Vanderpoel earned the top two seed times, and while Thomas maintained her first place spot, with a swim of 5:00.00, Vanderpoel slipped one position as sophomore teammate Kay Sterner moved into second with a time of 5:01.63, after lowering her prelims swim by eight seconds. Vanderpoel clocked a 5:03.09 to round out the All-SCIAC awards.
In the men's 500 free heat, the trio of Cameron Whiting (CMS), Mark Hallman (PP) and Jonah Hobbs (CLU) each lowered his prelim time from the morning. Both Whiting and Hallman broke the previous Meet Record of 4:31.35 set in 2011 with swims of 4:29.37 and 4:30.71, respectively. In his final championship appearance in the 500 free, Whiting shaved nearly five seconds off his prelims time. Also improving from morning to night with a swim of 4:33.92 was CLU freshman Hobbs who earns his first individual All-SCIAC honor. All three now have hopes of representing the SCIAC at Nationals.
Competition between the lanes continued with the 200 Individual Medley, starting with the women's race that featured three sophomores leading the way. Redlands' Ellie Jaques earned the top spot after hitting the wall in 2:06.69 to take time off her morning swim. The second finisher was Maki Tohmon (PP)whose 2:07.02 just out touched Emily McKinnon (2:07.94) from CMS to round out the podium stand in the event .
For the men's 200 IM, Redlands senior Jeff Depew,the three-time defending national champion in the event, won with a swim of 1:49.85 ahead of Occidental senior Steven Van Deventer whose 1:51.58 was an improvement on his own school record. Wrapping up the third spot was Pomona-Pitzer freshman Samuel To whose time of 1:52.85 was also a NCAA 'B' cut as he moved up from the fifth seed.
The shortest events of the weekend were once again one of the most exciting. The women's 50 free title went to La Verne senior Maddie Lovrensky (23.62) as she hit the wall five hundredths of a second ahead of CMS sophomore Kelly Ngo (23.67) for first. Third place went to CMS freshman Lorea Gwo in 24.14 for her first All-SCIAC recognition.
Individual events on day two concluded with the men's 50 free in which six finalists swam under 21 seconds. CMS junior Alex Poltash jumped from his second seed spot to the top of the podium with a swim of 20.60. In his home pool, competing in the event for the final time, WC senior Filip Dajkovich clocked 20.68 as the second fastest sprinter tonight. The third man to the wall in 20.79 was La Verne sophomore Daniel Carpenter.
Another exciting relay ended the night of competition. With athletes lining the ends of the pool, the Athenas used Ngo, Stephanie Doi, Courtney Chan and Gwo to combine for a winning women's time of 1:35.46. The second team home was from Pomona-Pitzer's quartet of Johanna Rayl, Alex Seidel, Cayla Nishizaki and Vicky Gyorffy in 1:37.12. Stealing the third position on the podium was the UR group of Jaques, Summer Harp, Emily Waddell and Lauren Robeznieks in a time of 1:37.22.
On the flip side, the Stags, Sagehens and Bulldogs matched the performances of their female counterparts by going 1-2-3 in the event. For CMS, Poltash, Matthew Williams, Patrick Shultz and Joel Hinton teamed up for a time of 1:21.97 just off the SCIAC record with the PP group of Andrew Savage, Hallman, Eirik Hansen andHugh Berryman joining forces for a swim of 1:22.60 with the UR quartet of Eric Loprete, Depew, Patrick Fink and Nelson Glendinning clocking a 1:23.78.
Additionally, the women's three-meter diving preliminaries took place this afternoon with Carli Lessard (CMS) leading the field with a 452.15 followed by Kayla DiMicco (CU) who scored a 411.80 as each punched a ticket to the NCAA Regionals in San Antonio, Texas next weekend. Finals will take place tomorrow evening.
Competition will continue for a third day on Saturday, Feb. 21 at 9:00 a.m. with finals following in the afternoon.
Results: Day Two
Tournament Central: 2015 SCIAC Championships
SCIAC Twitter: https://twitter.com/2015SCIACchamps
