The Lake Forest College swimming & diving teams swam against high-level competition at the University of Chicago's Phoenix Fall Classic over the weekend. The Forester women placed fifth and the men sixth at the meet. Lake Forest junior Becky Shaak qualified for the finals in each of her three individual events.
Shaak completed her preliminary swim in Saturday's 500-freestyle in 5:16.45 and then placed seventh in the final that evening. She also helped the 200-medley relay team place 10th and led off the 800-freestyle relay, which finished fifth. On Sunday she was sixth in the 400-IM in 4:47.15 and seventh in the 200-breaststroke in 2:33.44. Her preliminary time in the 400-IM was half of a second faster than in the finals and she posted a 2:31.14 in the morning in the 200-breaststroke. She anchored the Foresters' 400-freestyle relay, which finished ninth.
Three Forester men reached the finals a combined five times over the weekend. Sophomore Zach Wenner was eighth in the 500-freestyle (4:57.44) on Saturday and sixth in the 200-freestyle (1:45.88) on Sunday. Junior Alex Marks finished eighth in Saturday's 100-breaststroke (1:00.81) and Sunday's 200-breaststroke (2:16.06). Sophomore Garr Punnett placed seventh with a time of 53.04 seconds in Sunday's 100-butterfly. The three also competed on Lake Forest's 10th-place 200-medley (1:42.06) and fifth-place 800-freestyle (7:26.84) relay teams. Punnett and Wenner were also on the 400-freestyle relay team that finished sixth in 3:18.33.
Several Foresters finished between ninth and 16th in the morning preliminaries to reach the evening's B-finals. Punnett placed 10th in the 200-IM. Senior Amy Finn was 15th in the women's 500-freestyle and freshmen Mark Wilcoxen and Mitchell Reiner finished 12th and 14th, respectively, on the men's side. Freshman Kelsie Miller (ninth), sophomores Loren Dutca (11th) and Sabrina Letwin (13th), and junior Meghan Mason (14th) earned an evening swim in the women's 200-backstroke and freshman Brock Mone placed 14th in the same event on the men's side. Freshman Kim Newell was 14th and junior Kelsey Hoeper 16th in the 100-freestyle. Junior Diego Ledesma was also 16th in the men's 100. Saturday's final individual event was the 200-butterfly, where sophomore Sarah Stoklosa placed 10th and Punnett 13th.
Stoklosa started Sunday evening with a 14th-place finish in the 400-IM and Letwin touched the wall two places later. Junior Jake Albion was 13th on the men's side. Dutca was 14th in the women's 200-freestyle and Mone was 16th for the Forester men. Sophomore Jill Pastick took home 15th place in the 100-butterfly. Five Lake Forest swimmers scored points in the 100-backstroke. Miller was ninth, Hoeper 11th, and Dutca 13th on the women's side and Wenner placed ninth and Mone 12th in the men's race. Newell posted a 16th-place finish in the 50-freestyle, the final individual event of the weekend.
Lake Forest had five of the top seven places in the women's 1-meter diving competition and six Foresters finished among the top nine off the 3-meter board. Junior Samantha Gardner led the way with a third-place score of 381.75 and freshman Christina Pekar was fourth with 370 points in the 1-meter event. Pekar posted a third-place score of 364.85 in the 3-meter competition and was followed by Gardner in fourth with 346.30 points. Junior Matt Perry was seventh off both boards in the men's diving competition.
The Foresters' next meet will be the TYR/CollegeSwimming.com Classic at Carthage College December 2-3. The competition will begin at 9:00 a.m. both days.
