Heath Ogawa Breaks School Record in Double Dual at Illinois Tech

Photo by Matt Weidner
Photo by Matt Weidner

The Forester swimming and diving teams competed at Illinois Institute of Technology on Saturday in a double dual meet that also included Loras College. The Lake Forest men defeated both opponents while the women fell in a pair of close contests. Freshman diver Heath Ogawa earned a school record 444.45 points in the 1-meter competition.

Ogawa broke the program record of 431.25 points set by current sophomore Matt Demirs at last season's Midwest Conference Championships. Demirs finished with 391.45 points in Saturday's 1-meter event. Ogawa's score also qualified him for the NCAA Division III Regional Diving Competition in late February.

Several other Foresters won events on Saturday, including a sweep of the meet-opening 400-medley relay. Sophomores Brigit Dunne, Jessica Cline, and Simona Kurta had the women's team in first place by one-third of a second and junior Emily Bowens pulled away over the final 100 yards. Their time of 4:17.74 was more than three seconds ahead of runner-up Illinois Tech. Juniors Sam Freedberg and Orion Huey and sophomores Jakobi McClellan and David Bunting won the men's race in 3:40.30, two-and-a-half seconds ahead of Illinois Tech.

Lake Forest also swept the next event, the 1000-freestyle. Sophomore Toni Corbani won in 11:14.69 on the women's side and juinor Armel Cazedepats took the men's race in 10:23.58.

The next Forester victory was posted by senior Kristofer Korth in the 200-freestyle where his time of 1:48.67 was more than five seconds faster than runner-up Virgil Thomas, a Lake Forest junior.

The next Forester swimmer to win an event was junior James Haney in the 200-butterfly, where he finished in 2:03.13.

Bowens placed first in the 200-backstroke in 2:14.97 and Bunting made it a Lake Forest sweep in the event with his winning time of 2:01.45.

Corbani and Korth each won for the second time on the day in the 500-freestyle. Corbani finished the race in 5:29.49 and Korth in 4:56.01.

The Foresters ended the meet the same way they began it, by sweeping a relay. Bowens, sophomore Lily McCarthy, Corbani, and Kurta won the women's 400-freestyle relay in 3:50.80 and Huey, Bunting, Cazedepats, and Korth took the men's race in 3:17.89.

The Lake Forest men impvoved to 2-3 on the season while the Forester women fell to 0-5.

The next meet on the 2015-16 schedule is a dual against visiting Ripon College next Saturday at 1:00 p.m.