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| Peter Parisi |
College of Wooster sophomore Peter Parisi stood out at the Wooster Invitational, breaking two school records during the annual event, held at Wooster High School's Ellen Shapiro Natatorium this past Thursday to Saturday.
After winning the consolation heat for ninth-place in the 200 IM (1:59.70) on Thursday, Parisi broke out the next morning, establishing a new program record in the 100 butterfly with a time of 50.99 in the prelims. He passed Brandon DuGar on the ledger (51.31 in 2007), and then Parisi finished runner-up during the finals (51.18). The 50.99 time was just 0.15 seconds shy of a "B" cut for the NCAA Div. III Championships.
Parisi carried the momentum into Saturday's action as he shattered the previous Wooster best in the 100 breaststroke with a prelims' mark of 58.55. That was almost a full second better than the short-lived record of Tyler Hartley-Shepherd (59.41 in 2009). Parisi went on to another second-place finish (58.71).
While Parisi stole the headlines, it took a team effort for the Fighting Scots to take eighth-place in the highly-competitive field that included multiple NCAA Div. II schools. Wooster scored 620 points, a mere seven behind conference foe Allegheny College (620) in the battle for seventh, while in a thrilling finish, Case Western Reserve University won by a half point over Div. II Edinboro University, 1,371.5 to 1,371.
Parisi also played a role on the Scots' top relay performance, joining forces with Brett Dawson, Brendan Horgan, and Imre Namath for fourth-place in the 200 medley (1:36.96). Individually, Dawson advanced to a championship final (top-eight) in the 100 backstroke, touching sixth overall (53.84), and he added a 14th-place in the 200 back (2:03.37).
Horgan was 15th in the 100 fly (54.25), while teammate Peter Hause faired well in the butterfly races, too, as he earned 14th in the 200 (2:06.44) and 16th in the 100 (54.30).
Other notables included Alex LaJoie winning a consolation race for ninth-place in the 400 IM (4:21.29) and adding a 15th-place in the 200 back (2:03.38), Adel El-Adawy coming in 11th in the 200 back (2:02.11), and Kevin Audet winning the bonus heat of the 200 freestyle for 17th-place (1:49.62).
In the diving well, Ryan O'Dell led Wooster with 10-place showings on both the one-meter (260.40) and three-meter (246.90).
The Scots will be off from formal competition until January.