Foresters Fall to Chicago in Dual Meet

Photos by Abby King
Photos by Abby King

The Lake Forest College swimming and diving teams started Saturday with a victory in the women's 200-meter medley relay but eventually dropped a dual meet to visiting University of Chicago. The Maroon women prevailed 142-87 and the men 114.5-89.5.

The contest actually began with the Foresters' annual Senior Day recognition, where David Bunting, Toni Corbani, Matt Demirs, Brigit Dunne, Landon Longfield, and Lily McCarthy were honored before their final home meet.

Dunne then led off the relay and was followed by freshmen Corryn Christjansen, Susan Guo, and Sarah Truxton. They completed the race in 2:09.55, more than a second-and-a-half ahead of Chicago.

The first individual event of the day was the 800-meter freestyle and McCarthy posted the first of her two victories with a time of 9:45.53, more than five seconds better than the runner-up. McCarthy also recorded a two-second win in the 400-meter freestyle later on in 4:44.88. She has now won both distance events in each of the team's last three meets.

Sophomore Rachel Trevillian turned in the home team's next triumph in the 400-meter individual medley. Her time of 5:31.86 was more than six-and-a-half seconds ahead of second place.

The first victory for the Forester men went to junior Heath Ogawa, who earned 315.75 points in the 1-meter diving competition. He later won the 3-meter event with a score of 335.30 to remain undefeated on the season.

Junior Frederick Weichmann came up with a victory in the backstroke for the second week in a row, finishing the 200 meters in 2:16.06 to edge out the runner-up by .57 seconds.

After the second victories of the meet for McCarthy and Ogawa, the final Forester triumph came in the last event, the men's 200-meter freestyle relay. Bunting, freshmen Ethan Hare and Nathan Ulm, and junior Blake Rhodes edged out the Maroons by just .06 seconds with a time of 1:40.55. Rhodes made up two-tenths of a second during the final leg to out-touch the anchor from Chicago.

The Lake Forest men and women fell to 2-3 in dual meets this season. They will look to finish the year at .500 when they travel to Illinois Institute of Technology next Saturday. The meet will begin at 1:00 p.m. While the swimmers are at Illinois Tech, the Forester divers will compete at the UIC Diving Invitational, which starts at 11:00 a.m.