A Midwest Conference record-tying performance by freshman Violet Anderson in the 100 butterfly was one of five victories posted by the Foresters on Saturday, day two of three at the 2020 MWC Championship Meet at Grinnell College.
Saturday evening's finals session began with the 200-medley relay and a fourth-place finish by the Lake Forest men. In order, junior Evan Weller, freshman Jackson Sawyer, junior Thomas Anderson, and sophomore Graeme Witte posted a time of 1:37.55. The first Forester victory of the day came in the women's race, where junior Fallon Longfield swam the backstroke, sophomore Sarah Burchart the breaststroke, junior Susan Guo the butterfly, and sophomore Kerry Mullen the freestyle. Their time of 1:48.15 won the event by more than a second and they now rank second in program history.
The session continued with the final three rounds of Saturday's diving competition. Freshman Naqi Rizvi placed fourth in the men's 3-meter event with 307.30 points. On the women's side senior Lizzie Johns earned her second runner-up finish of the weekend with 369.55 points off the 1-meter board. Classmate Victoria Miller placed fourth with 349.90 points, sophomore Missy Bryan sixth with 338.60, and sophomore McKinley Scheppler 12th with 278.20.
When the races resumed the Forester men made a couple of updates to the program's top five list in the 400 individual medley. Junior Max Rowland's dramatic comeback effort in the freestyle portion of the event nearly earned him a second straight title in the event. He placed second and his career-best time of 4:04.35 moved him up a spot to second in team history while sophomore Alec Pittman was third at the meet and is now fourth in school history at 4:07.93. Senior Rachel Trevillian was the runner-up in the women's 400 IM in 4:43.79 while classmate Ani Karagianis placed eighth with a time of 5:02.80.
Lake Forest had three swimmers in the A-final of the men's 100-butterfly and all three are juniors. Evan Weller's time of 53.01 seconds in the finals was good for fifth place while Nathan Ulm was seventh in 53.74 seconds and Thomas Anderson eighth in 54.30. All three swam slightly faster in the morning prelims to qualify for the top eight. Anderson and Guo separated themselves from the rest of the field in the women's event, which included a total of five Foresters in the top seven. Guo, who set the school record as a freshman and improved on it with a 57.62 in December, broke it again with a 57.15 in the morning, which was just slightly faster than Anderson's prelim time of 57.29. They shattered the mark again in the evening, with Anderson matching the MWC record of 56.67 seconds and Guo finishing second in 56.79. Freshman Sophie Hanson was fourth (59.97) and sophomores Kerry Mullen (1:00.04) and Kylie Morgan (1:00.36) sixth and seventh, respectively.
Sophomore Graeme Witte made it back-to-back titles for the Foresters when he outswam the leader at the time by 1.22 seconds in the last 50 of the 200 freestyle to win by a third of a second. His time of 1:42.29 ranks him second in team history in that event.
Sawyer returned to the pool in the 100-breaststroke and finished sixth with a time of 59.71 seconds. Fellow freshman CJ Myers was eighth in 1:02.28. A pair of Foresters were separated by a hundreth of a second in the women's race, where Burchart's 1:10.08 was good for fourth place and barely edged out freshman Vanessa Ordaz.
The final individual event of the night was the 100-backstroke but Lake Forest's top performance in the men's event occurred in the morning prelims when junior Marcus Carter-Buckman broke the school record with a time of 51.10 seconds. His 51.97 seconds in the final was good for third place and senior Zeb Thorsen finished seventh in 53.35 seconds. On the women's side Longfield entered the weekend ranked fifth in program history with a career-best time of 59.05 seconds and matched that mark with the field's top performance in the prelims. She was also the fastest in the league in the evening, claiming the title with a career-best 59.03. Freshman Jhanati Rajesh finished fourth in 1:01.65.
The men's 800 freestyle relay team of Witte, Rowland, Pittman, and Carter-Buckman turned in the Foresters' final victory of the day and 10th at the meet. Their time of 6:58.48 was less than a second better than runner-up Grinnell and ranks second in program history. Grinnell was able to come back and edge out the Foresters in the women's race, where Guo, Morgan, Anderson, and Trevillian were second in 7:57.34.
The Lake Forest women have tallied 648 points this weekend and lead Grinnell by just 48.5 going into the third and final day. The men's total of 461 is 155.5 shy of the leading Pioneers and 94.5 ahead of third-place St. Norbert College.
Sunday's prelims will begin at 9:00 a.m. and the finals at 4:00 in the afternoon.
