Senior Lily McCarthy won the 1650-freestyle for the third year in a row and earned her team's 10th individual title of the weekend as Lake Forest finished second at the 2018 Midwest Conference Championships.
McCarthy, who also finished first in the 500-freestyle on Friday, made it a sweep of the two longest events of the meet with Sunday's triumph. She completed the 66 lengths of the pool in 17:45.91, which moves her up a spot to third in program history in the event. Her split at the 1000-yard mark was 10:44.83, which ranks third in team annals. Forester freshman Ani Karagianis placed third in the race in 18:26.33 and senior Toni Corbani fourth in 18:35.17.
The men's 1650-freestyle preceded the women's and freshman Max Rowland was the runner-up with a time of 16:34.77. He now ranks third in school history in the event and fourth with a split of 10:01.43 at the 1000-yard mark.
Junior Frederick Weichmann's last collegiate swim also put his name among the program's all-time best. His runner-up time in the 200-backstroke was 1:54.79, which ranks fourth in team history. Freshman Nathan Ulm was also in the A-final, where he placed seventh in 2:01.16. Lake Forest put three swimmers in the top five in the women's race, led by runner-up Brigit Dunne with a time of 2:12.01. Freshman Fallon Longfield was third in 2:12.62 and classmate Sarah Truxton fifth in 2:15.90.
After collecting titles in the 200-IM on Friday and 200-freestyle on Saturday, senior David Bunting was not quite able to make it 3-for-3 on the weekend. His time of 48.01 seconds in Sunday's 100-freestyle was good for fifth place while junior Blake Rhodes was close behind in 48.34 and seventh place. Freshman Susan Guo placed second in the women's 100-freestyle and her time of 53.94 seconds ranks fifth in school history. Sophomore Hannah Stinson and freshman Corynn Christjansen finished seventh and eighth, respectively, in 55.32 and 55.53 seconds.
Freshman Ethan Hare's bid for a sweep of the breaststroke events came up just short as he finished second in the 200 on Sunday with a time of 2:09.96.
Freshman Evan Weller was also a second-place finisher in the grueling 200-butterfly, which he completed in 1:56.06. Sophomore Rachel Trevillian placed third on the women's side in 2:15.15.
The final event of the weekend was the 400-freestyle relay, where Hare, Rhodes, Loongfield, and Bunting were the third team to touch the wall in the men's race with a time of 3:10.22. Guo, Truxton, Dunne, and McCarthy turned in Lake Forest's sixth runner-up performance of the day in the women's race, which they finished in 3:38.00.
Grinnell College finished first in both the men's and women's team standings. The Forester men's team's 667 points were 261 fewer than the hosts' but still well ahead of third-place Ripon College's total of 402. The Lake Forest women finished with 681 points while the Pioneers won with 954.5 and Lawrence University was third with 564.5.
Several awards were handed out after the completion of the meet, including a second straight MWC Male Diver of the Year honor for Forester junior Heath Ogawa, who set conference records with 567.70 points in Friday's 1-meter competition and 599.75 points off the 3-meter board on Saturday. While the conference meet marks the end of the season for the rest of the Foresters, he and sophomore Lizzie Johns have earned spots in the field at the NCAA Division III Region 1 Diving Championships March 2-3 at the University of Chicago.
Lake Forest swimmers and divers broke three school records over the weekend and made 16 updates to the list of the program's top five performers in each event.
