The Lake Forest College swimming & diving teams hosted and defeated Illinois Institute of Technology on Saturday in their final tuneup before the conference meet in two weeks. Forester seniors Jade Perkins and Amy Finn were honored before the final home meet of their careers.
The final score on the women's side was 121-31 and the Forester men prevailed 138-91.
Perkins scored a season-high 215.45 points in the 1-meter competition and 188.95 off the 3-meter board.
Finn won the 800m-freestyle in 10:03.57 and the 400m-freestyle in 4:52.28 before leading off the victorious 200m-freestyle relay team, which finished in 2:00.52.
Lake Forest started the meet the 200-medley relay juniors Kelsey Hoeper and Becky Shaak and sophomores Jill Pastick and Loren Dutca winning the 200m-medley relay with a time of 2:10.19.
The Forester men's 200-medley relay team of sophomore Garr Punnett, junior Alex Marks, freshman Kevin Barbrick, and junior Diego Ledesma would have broken the Sports & Recreation Center pool record with their time of 1:50.19 had Illinois Tech not edged them out for first place by less than a second.
Shaak, junior Meghan Mason, and sophomore Zach Wenner joined Finn as winners of two individual events. Shaak touched the wall first in the 100m-freestyle in 1:02.37 and the 100m-breaststroke in 1:18.75. Mason's time of 30.49 seconds was the fastest in the 50m-freestyle and she also won the 100m-backstroke in 1:13.79. Wenner placed first in the 200m-freestyle in 1:59.32 and the 100m-freestyle with a time of 54.48 seconds.
Hoeper finished first in the 200m-freestyle (2:17.53), sophomore Sarah Stoklosa won the 200m-IM (2:37.55), and Pastick prevailed in the 100m-butterfly (1:11.28).
On the men's side sophomore David Albion won the 200m-IM in 2:21.54, Punnett took first in the 100m-butterfly in 58.58 seconds, and Marks triumphed in the 100m-breaststroke in 1:10.61.
Hoeper, Pastick, and freshman Jessica Hanch were Finn's teammates on the 200m-freestyle relay (2:00.52) and Barbrick, Punnett, Wenner, and Ledesma closed out the day by winning the men's 200m-freestyle relay in 1:38.02, just two-hundredths of a second off the pool record.
The Forester divers continued posting impressive scores. On the men's side Matt Perry won the 3-meter competition with 257.65 points and his first-place score of 264.20 points off the 1-meter board were just 10.80 points shy of the minimum to be elibigle for selection to the national meet. Freshman Christina Pekar and junior Sam Gardner were able to post NCAA Division III Championship Meet qualifying scores of 259.40 and 257.70 points, respecitvely, off the 1-meter board and freshman Sarah Pekar fell just shy of the 255-point standard with 252.20. Recordings of Gardner's and Christina Pekar's performances will now be reviewed by the committee that selects the participants in the NCAA Championships. Christina Pekar also had the highest score of the meet in the 3-meter competition with 256.10 points.
Lake Forest's next meet will be the Midwest Conference Championships at Lawrence University February 17-19.
