Junior Travis Johnson tied for first in the 50-freestyle and helped Lake Forest claim a pair of relay titles at the Midwest Conference Championship Meet at Grinnell College on Friday. The Forester men are just a point-and-a-half out of first place while the women rank third in the team standings.
Johnson, fellow junior Orion Huey, and sophomores David Bunting and Jakobi McClellan began Friday's finals by capturing a championship in the 200-freestyle relay. It was the Foresters fourth consecutive conference title in the event and their time of 1:25.05 ranks third in program history, just .03 seconds behind last year's squad.
The Forester women's 200-freestyle relay team of juniors Emily Bowens and Lauren Dalecky and sophomores Simona Kurta and Brigit Dunne finished third in 1:39.84.
The completion of Friday's diving competitions was next and Forester freshman Heath Ogawa was the league's runner-up off the 1-meter board with a program record score of 488.15 points. Ogawa had set the previous team record of 433.15 points earlier this season. Sophomore Matt Demirs was fourth in the event with an 11-dive score of 406.00 points.
Senior Armel Cazedepats then earned the final spot on the program's top-five list in the 500-freestyle with his fifth-place time of 4:45.55. Senior Kristofer Korth was sixth in 4:45.75 and junior Chris Martinez seventh in 4:48.56. Junior Sean Flanigan and freshman Frederick Weichmann added six more points to Lake Forest's total from the B-final by placing 12th and 16th, respectively.
Sophomore Lily McCarthy turned in the Forester women's team's highest individual performance on Friday in the 500-freestyle, where her time of 5:11.71 was good for second place. Classmate Toni Corbani earned a spot in the A-final with a time of 5:17.83 in the morning prelims and finished eighth in the evening in 5:21.20. Fellow sophomore Magdalen Kroeger was 10th in 5:22.04.
Lake Forest had three swimmers in the A-final and two in the B-final of the men's 200-IM, where junior Sam Freedberg defended his title with a time of 1:53.82. Huey was the runner-up in 1:54.26, which moves him up a spot to third in school history in that event. Bunting was fifth in the race in 1:59.72 after posting a time of 1:57.71 in the prelims. Sophomore Landon Longfield won the B-final for ninth place overall with a time of 2:01.11 while junior Ryan Keast placed 13th in 2:03.74.
Kurta posted a fourth-place finish in the women's 200-IM while sophomore Jessica Cline was 13th. Their respective times of 2:12.87 and 2:18.30 in the prelims were each just slightly faster than those from the finals.
The battle for first in the men's 50-freestyle turned into a tie so Johnson will have to share the title of "fastest man in the MWC" for this year. His time of 21.18 seconds is a career-best but does not move him up from third in team annals in that event. Sophomore James Winkler was sixth in 21.81 seconds and McClellan won the B-final (ninth overall) in 21.86.
Bowens completed the women's 50-freestyle in 25.08 seconds in the morning to earn a spot in the evening's A-final, where she placed eighth in 25.26. Dalecky, who was in the B-final, turned in a time of 25.07 seconds in the evening but settled for ninth place.
Friday's final event was the 400-medley relay, where the Forester men earned another title. McClellan had the squad tied for first after the backstroke, Korth's breaststroke gave Lake Forest the lead, and Huey and Johnson increased the distance ahead of the runners-up from Grinnell. Their time of 3:27.44 ranks third in program history.
Bowens, Dalecky, Kurta, and Dunne teamed up again in the women's 400-medley relay, where they finished second in 4:00.01, a time that ranks fourth in school history.
The Grinnell men's team's 263 points on day one are just slightly ahead of the Forester's 261.5. Carroll University is third out of nine teams with 143.5 points. The Pioneer women are also in first with 274 points, 58 more than second-place Carroll University. Lake Forest is in third with 140 points and Lawrence fourth with 113.
Saturday's prelims will begin at 10:00 a.m. and the evening finals will start at 5:30.