Both the Emory University men's and women's squads took commanding leads at the University Athletic Association (UAA) Swimming and Diving Championships on Friday, putting themselves in position to sweep the conference titles for the 14th-consecutive year.
The Emory men ended Friday with 1,278 points, opening a large margin ahead of second-place Case Western Reserve University (795.5 points) and third-place University of Chicago (767 points). They are followed by Carnegie Mellon University (733 points), Washington University (683 points), New York University (639 points) and the University of Rochester (518.5 points).
On the women's side, Emory has scored 1,393 points to open a 520 point lead over second-place Chicago (873 points). Carnegie Mellon sits in third with 762 points, followed by NYU (657), Washington (610), Case (557) and Rochester (549).
The Emory women set four conference meet records during competition on Friday. Two of those came in relay events, as the Eagles' 200-yard medley relay team of sophomore Sadie Nennig, senior Jennifer Aronoff, junior Leslie Hackler and sophomore Jennifer Pak won the event with a UAA-record time of 1:43.67, good for an NCAA 'B' cut. The 800-yard freestyle relay team of senior Anne Culpepper, senior Whitley Taylor, Pak and junior Ann Wolber added a conference record with an event winning time of 7:32.59, also a 'B' cut.
Individually, Nennig set a UAA record and won a conference title in the 100-yard backstroke with an 'A' cut time of 55.73 seconds. The final UAA record performance came from Hackler in the 100-yard butterfly with a 'B' cut time of 56.05 seconds to win the event.
In the 400-yard individual medley, junior Taryn Lushinsky claimed the conference title with a pool-record and 'B' cut time of 4:26.52, while freshman Megan Beach earned all-UAA honors, finishing second with a 'B' mark of 4:28.18.
The Eagles also swept the top three spots in the 200-yard freestyle, as Culpepper won the event with a time of 1:52.33, followed by Taylor in second place (1:52.17 in the preliminaries) and Pak (1:53.08).
Other all-UAA performances during the day came from freshman Nina Zook in the 100 fly (2nd place, 56.85 seconds), Aronoff (2nd place, 1:05.39) and junior Renee Rosenkranz (3rd place, 1:05.37 in the preliminaries) in the 100-yard breaststroke, junior Anna Dobben in the 100-yard backstroke (2nd place, 56.39 seconds), and sophomore Sarah Greene in the three-meter dive (2nd place, 426.00 points).
The men's 200-yard medley relay team also set a new conference record, as junior Miller Douglas, junior Peter O'Brien, junior Stephen Czaja and sophomore Ryan Bass won the event with a 'B' cut time of 1:31.71.
The Eagles added three other pool record times during the day. Douglas won the 400-yard individual medley with a pool-record time of 4:01.92, while O'Brien claimed the conference title in the 100-yard breaststroke with a mark of 56.78 seconds. The Eagles' 800-yard freestyle relay team of junior Jeff Simpson, freshman Andrew Dillinger, O'Brien and sophomore Jake Stephens won the event and set a pool record with a time of 6:48.63.
Capping off the conference titles during the day for the Eagles was senior Jared Dubnow, who won the 100-yard backstroke with a time of 51.19 seconds in the preliminaries.
All-UAA honors during the day were earned by Stephens for his performance in the 400-yard individual medley (2nd place, 4:02.27), Czaja (2nd place, 49.99 seconds) and senior Patrick Augustyn (3rd place, 50.74 seconds) in the 100-yard butterfly, Dillinger (2nd place, 1:42.05) and Simpson (3rd place, 1:42.19) in the 200-yard freestyle, and senior Zeke Van Keuren in the 100-yard backstroke (2nd place, 51.15 seconds in the preliminaries).
At the end of day three, the Emory women have won 10 of the 14 events at the meet, and compiled a total of 23 all-UAA honors. The Emory men have claimed UAA Championships in nine of the 13 events, and earned 19 all-conference certificates.
The UAA Championships will wrap up tomorrow in Cleveland, Ohio, with the swimming preliminaries at 10:00 AM, and the finals at 6:00 PM. The men's one-meter dive will wrap up the diving portion of the meet tomorrow, with preliminaries at 1:00 PM and finals at 3:00 PM.
Eagles Position Themselves for 14th-Straight UAA Championships during Day Three of Conference Meet
Posted: Feb 17, 2012