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The College of Wooster’s women’s swimming and diving teams in the early 2000s featured some of the deepest, most talented squads in program history, and that parlayed into four straight top 10 finishes at the NCAA Div. III Championships between 2001-04. Jenny Bayuk was one of the key components on three of those teams.
A multitude of reasons attracted Bayuk to the College, including her older brother, Steve ‘00, a nine-time All-American who was inducted into the W Association Hall of Fame in 2014.
Bayuk tied for 14th in program history with 10 All-American certificates earned at nationals, dove right in as a first-year with a 13th-place time of 2:27.07 in the 200 breaststroke. The next year, her full potential began to come to fruition with a trio of All-American certificates as Wooster climbed from 13th to 10th in the team standings. Bayuk churned out a strong start to her sophomore national championship meet helping the 200 medley relay touch sixth at 1:48.97. Individually, Bayuk placed eighth in the 100 breast with a time of 1:06.94. In the 200 breast, she nearly qualified for the championship heat, missing a spot by .13, but her 2:24.51 in the finals netted ninth-place honors.
As a junior, Bayuk’s record-setting potential became to come to fruition as she was part of Wooster’s school record 200 and 400 medley relays, both of which earned All-American certificates as part of the Scots’ seventh-place team finish at the Div. III Championships. In the 200 medley relay, Wooster hit the deck with a fourth-place time of 1:47.47, with the finish marking the Scots’ highest placement since the 1989 200 freestyle relay sprinted its way to runner-up honors.
“Jenny was a very hard working and passionate swimmer,” stated former swimming coach and current athletic director Keith Beckett. “She completed the national team medley relays and made those among the very best in the nation. We won numerous meets and achieved (national) standards because of Jenny.”
Saving her best efforts for senior year, Bayuk broke Wooster’s 200 breast record at Akron University’s Zippy Invitational with a time of 2:21.92, a mark that still stands to this day. In the 100 breast, Bayuk hit the wall at 1:06.05 at the mid-season meet, the second-fastest clip in program history, and no swimmer since has surpassed Bayuk’s time.
“Jenny’s ability to deliver sprint speeds for the short medley relays as well as achieve individual success both at the conference and national level, including the program’s top time in the 200 breast was both rare and special,” summed up Beckett.
At the national meet, Bayuk helped Wooster to a fifth-place finish, matching the highest ever turned in by the program. Aided by a career-high four All-American certificates, Bayuk and the 200 medley relay placed fourth for the second straight year, this time checking in at 1:47.71, while the 400 medley relay earned a spot in the championship heat en route to the eighth-place clip of 3:57.93. In individual events, Bayuk closed her breaststroke career with an eighth-place showing in the 200-yard event (2:24.20), and a 10th-place outing in the 100-yard race (1:06.55).
“I distinctly remember my last swim at nationals in 2003, and how happy and proud I was to represent Wooster, and reflect on the awesome four years I had there,” summed up Bayuk. “It wasn’t my fastest swim, but I had the most fun doing it.”
At the conference level, Bayuk helped the Scots to a quartet of third-place finishes at the North Coast Athletic Conference Championships as Wooster finished behind national powerhouses Denison University and Kenyon College. For her career, Bayuk earned seven all-conference certificates.
After graduating from Wooster with a bachelor’s in biochemistry, Bayuk taught high school science and coached club swimming for a year in Minnesota before attending medical school at A.T. Still University of Health Sciences in Kirksville, Mo., where she earned her D.O. (Doctor of Osteopathy). After working as a doctor in South Carolina since earning her pediatrician board certification in 2011, Bayuk recently relocated just outside of Columbus, Ohio, and started working as an outpatient pediatrician at Nationwide Children’s Hospital earlier this month.
Personally, Bayuk is married to Scott Carney, and the couple has a daughter, Drew (18 months), and is expecting a second daughter in November.