Senior Sam Freedberg set a meet record in the 200-IM and swam a leg on the victorious 400-freestyle relay team as the Lake Forest College men placed third and the women fourth on Saturday in the annual Illinois-Michigan Quadrangular, hosted by Wheaton College.
Freedberg's time of 1:59.02 was the best in the 14-swimmer field by more than two seconds and the fastest in the 20-year history of the meet. He had the race's fastest splits in the butterfly, backstroke, and breaststroke.
The Foresters' only other triumph in an individual event was turned in by fellow senior Orion Huey in the 200-backstroke, where 1:57.85 was more than a second ahead of the runner-up from Wheaton.
Lake Forest's individual event winners were joined by senior Travis Johnson and junior David Bunting in the 400-freestyle relay, the final event of the day. The Foresters were in second place at the halfway point but Freedberg and Huey each outswam their counterparts from Hope College by two seconds to secure the victory. Their time of 3:12.95 was nearly two seconds better than Hope's 3:14.83.
Several other events had Forester swimmers among the top three finishers, beginning with the 1000-freestyle where junior Lily McCarthy was third with a time of 11:13.59 in the women's race and senior James Haney was the runner-up in the men's race in 10:09.51.
Bunting's 200-freestyle time of 1:46.95 was also good for second place, less than two-tenths of a second behind the winner.
Johnson finished third in the 50-freestyle in 21.86 seconds, as did senior Emily Bowens in the 200-backstroke (2:14.81) and McCarthy in the 500-freestyle (5:26.26).
Lake Forest added third-place finishes in both 200-breaststroke, where senior Lauren Dalecky completed the women's race in 2:34.18 and classmate Ryan Keast the men's in 2:21.23.
The Wheaton men won the meet with 546 points, 110 more than runner-up Hope. With 394, Lake Forest edged out Kalamazoo College for third place by 32 points. Wheaton (552) and Hope (492) were also first and second, respectively, on the women;s side. Kalamazoo tallied 423 points and the Foresters 205.
The next event on Lake Forest's schedule is next Saturday's double-dual home meet against Lawrence University and the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. The contest will begin at 1:00 p.m.
