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| Sarah Litt |
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| Zackary Pool |
Fueled by school-record setting performances by Conner Gelwicks and Evan Hagedorn as well as Zackary Pool's championship-heat qualification, The College of Wooster men's swimming and diving team made a strong push for a top-five finish at the North Coast Athletic Conference Championships before barely settling for sixth in the best swim conference in NCAA Div. III, as the meet came to a conclusion Saturday at Denison University's Trumbull Aquatics Center in Granville, Ohio.
Wooster's women's team, which showcased its depth with 14 different scores on the final day, also wound up in sixth-place.
For the second day in a row, Gelwicks reached a championship heat and recorded an NCAA "B" cut, and this time he also shattered a school record. During the preliminaries of the 200 backstroke, the sophomore standout exploded to the wall in 1:51.19, the best performance ever by a Scot in that event by a full second and a half. Gelwicks finished ninth overall (1:54.42).
Hagedorn cut another second off of his own school record in the 200 breaststroke, trimming it to 2:07.46, good for 12th-place in one of the conference's most competitive events.
Pool, a junior, reached his first career NCAC championship finals in the 200 butterfly, doing so with the fourth-fastest performance in school history during the prelims (1:56.76) and lowering it further to 1:56.63 for ninth-place in the finals.
The 200 fly was Wooster's best event, with three teammates backing up Pool in the consolation heat as Travis Burgess took 13th (1:59.06), Brian Maddock 14th (1:59.07), and Avery Wilson 17th (2:02.01).
Similarly, the Scots piled up points behind Gelwicks in the 200 back. Freshman Matthew Pech broke out with a win in the bonus heat for 19th-place (2:01.71), followed by teammates Ben Hopper in 23rd (2:06.25), Sebastian Weber in 26th (2:08.61), and James Lorenzin in 27th (2:09.53).
Also with Hagedorn in the consolation finals of the 200 breast was Frayne Poeting, who finished 18th (2:18.08), and Andrew Pfeuffer was 25th in that event (2:25.53).
Lorenzin led the team in the 1650 freestyle, as he covered the mile in 17:36.81 for 17th-place, and Emmett Werthmann and Weber also scored as they took 24th (18:40.06) and 25th (18:43.96), respectively, and in the 100 free, sprinter Aaron Brown came in 20th (47.56).
Not to be overlooked, diver Aaron Salzman provided a valuable contribution with a ninth-place effort on the one-meter board (389.85) and the 400 freestyle relay team of Gelwicks, Poeting, Pool, and Brown came in seventh (3:11.78).
Sarah Litt was among the headliners for Wooster's women's team on Saturday. She narrowly missed an NCAC championship heat appearance with the 10th-best morning swim in the 200 fly, then went over two seconds faster in winning the consolation finals for 10th-place (2:09.94), and she was 12th (2:10.34) in the 200 back. They marked the sixth- and seventh-best performances in program history, respectively.
Litt was joined by Colleen Kill and Hanna Mascari in the 200 fly consolation heat, with Kill touching 15th (2:15.85) and Mascari 18th (2:19.50). Also in that event, Molly Laubernds won the bonus heat for 19th-place (2:17.70), with teammate Sarah Padrutt right behind her in 20th (2:20.59).
Kaitlyn Fries registered the Scots' second-best finish of the day with an 11th in the 200 breast (2:28.55), and also part of that final was Erin Drake, who earned 18th (2:36.63).
Morgan Hughes led three Wooster point producers in the 100 free, as the senior notched 12th (53.12) followed by Jamie Hibbs in 17th (54.31) and Anna McGlade in 21st (54.22).
In the grueling 1650, Caitlin Shea edged teammate Theresa Dunne at the wall. The duo came in 14th (18:37.34) and 15th (18:39.87), respectively, while rounding out the individual scorers were Lena Smith's and Holly Hickman's respective 22nd- (2:18.16) and 23rd-place (2:20.09) in the 200 back.
Closing out the competition, Hughes, McGlade, Fries, and Hibbs joined forces for sixth-place in the 400 free relay (3:36.32).