The Lake Forest College men's and women's swimming and diving teams placed second at the Midwest Conference Championship Meet at Grinnell College over the weekend.
After collecting three victories on Friday and six on Saturday, the Foresters added three more on the third and final day of the event, beginning with senior Alec Pittman in the 1650-freestyle. His time of 16:12.91 was also the team's only NCAA B-cut on the weekend. Lake Forest actually went 1-2 in the race with fellow senior Max Rowland the runner-up with a time of 16:24.45. Sophomore David Beck added a seventh-place finish and time of 17:07.86. On the women's side sophomores Ally McCarthy and Ella Burns were second and third in 17:46.17 and 18:10.57, respectively. McCarthy's time ranks her fourth in team history while her 1000 split of 10:43.86 is third.
The 200-backstroke was next and freshman Noah McAdam finished fourth in the men's race in 1:57.22. Sophomore Helena Blumenau, the runner-up in Saturday's 100-back, traded spots with that winner on the podium on Sunday and now ranks second in program history in the event. Freshman Caprice Kalvelage tied for fourth in the race with a time of 2:11.01.
Three seniors found themselves in the A-final of the 100-freestyle. Graeme Witte placed third in the men's race in 47.09 seconds while classmates Sarah Burchart and Kylie Morgan were second and fourth, respectively, on the women's side. Their times of 53.01 and 53.18 also rank them second and fourth in team annals.
Freshman Tucker Potts made his third entry of the weekend on the men's program's top-times list with a 2:08.03 in Sunday's 200-breaststroke. That mark was good for fourth in school history and fifth at the meet while junior Sebastian Wagoner was eighth in 2:13.30. Three of the top six finishers in the women's race were Foresters with freshman Lia Romanotto placing third (2:30.86), junior Vanessa Ordaz fourth (2:33.07), and sophomore Sarah McField sixth in 2:35.61.
The meet's final individual event was the 200-butterfly and Lake Forest had three freshmen in the men's A-final. Matthew Makepeace was fourth (1:58.47), Ben Jacob fifth (1:58.92), and Luca Vulpescu seventh (2:03.25). There were also three Forester women in the A-final, where junior Violet Anderson successfully defended her title from 2020 with a time of 2:07.60. Freshman Michelle Paddon-Jones finished fourth in 2:16.56 while twin sister Sylvie was the next to touch the wall in 2:17.51.
The Forester men closed out the weekend with a third place finish and time of 3:10.99 in the 400-freestyle relay. Burchart, Blumenau, Anderson, and Morgan were second in the women's race in 3:35.30, a time that ranks them fifth in program history. All five women's relays at the meet made the program's top times list.
Grinnell swept the team competitions with the Pioneer men earning 944 points and the women 885. Lake Forest's men were next at 637 points and St. Norbert College had 544. The Forester women kept it close all weekend long and finished with 856. St. Norbert was third with 473.
Lake Forest was well-represented during the awards ceremony at the end of the meet. With the highest cumulative grade point average of any men's swimmer at the meet, Witte repeated as the league's Elite 20 Award winner. On the women's side McCarthy was named MWC Newcomer of the Year and Vadim Tashlitsky MWC Coach of the Year for the sixth time. He has also received the award twice for his work with the men's team.
The Forester men have now finished among the top two teams in the league for 11 consecutive seasons while the women have been first or second eight times during that span.
