The Lake Forest College swimming & diving teams are at Grinnell College this weekend competing in the 2014 Midwest Conference Championship Meet. The Forester men are in the lead and the women are in second place after day two. Senior Garr Punnett turned in victories and school record times in the 100-butterfly and 100-backstroke on Saturday.
Punnett's triumph in the 100-butterfly was his third in a row and his time of 49.97 seconds broke the conference record he set a year ago by nearly four-tenths of a second. It was also a "B-cut" NCAA Championship Meet qualifying time. He finished the 100-backstroke in 51.51 seconds.
Forester freshman Sam Freedberg also posted a "B-cut" in the 400-IM, where his time of 4:01.06 broke the previous conference record by more than a second-and-a-half. Sophomore Kristofer Korth was third in the race and also bested the "B-cut" standard with a time of 4:06.59. Later in the evening, Korth won the 100-breaststroke in 57.57 seconds, breaking the conference record with his second "B-cut" of the day.
Lake Forest's other victory was in women's 1-meter diving, where junior Christina Pekar's score of 467.35 points gave her a second straight sweep of the diving events at the conference meet. She will likely be named MWC Women's Diver of the Meet for the second consecutive year at the end of Sunday's competition.
Additional Lake Forest College records fell in three other events. The women's 200-medley relay team of freshmen Emily Bowens, Lauren Dalecky, and Aidan Bybee and sophomore Alex Dunn finished third in the race with a time of 1:48.96, more than eight-tenths of a second faster than the previous recod set last year. Dalecky was also the runner-up in the 100-breaststroke and her time of 1:07.33 broke a 16-year-old record by a tenth-of-a-second. Finally, the men's 800-freestyle relay team of Korth, freshman Drake Nickell, junior Mitchell Reiner, and senior Zach Wenner was second at the meet but first in team history by nearly 10 seconds.
Several other performances on Saturday made their way onto the list of the top five performers in program history each event. Freshman diver Mateusz Obstoj was the runner-up off the 3-meter board with 389.55 points, which improves his third-place ranking in team annals. The men's 200-medley relay team of freshman Virgil Thomas, Korth, Punnett, and freshman Travis Johnson finished in 1:35.23, which places them fourth on the list. Junior Mark Wilcoxen was second in the 100-butterly behind Punnett and he added his name to the fifth spot in team history with a time of 52.20 seconds. Sophomore Brooke Rowley was already second in in the women's 100-butterfly but she improved her time to 59.32 seconds with her runner-up performance on Saturday. Wenner finished second in the 200-freestyle in 1:42.49, a career-best time but still ranking third in school history. Freshman Ryan Keast grabbed the fifth spot on the list in the 100-breaststroke with his third-place time of 59.09 seconds. Thomas was fourth in the finals of the 100-backstroke but his prelim time of 53.47 seconds was his best of the day and ranks him fifth in program history. Bowens, who finished second in the women's 100-backstroke, was also faster in the prelims amd her time of 59.52 seconds ranks third in team history.
With one day left in the competition, the Lake Forest men are in first place with 625 points, 28 more than Grinnell. The Forester women are comfortably in second with 487 points and trail the Pioneers by 136.
Sunday's events are the 1,650-freestyle, 200-backstroke, 100-freestyle, 200-breaststroke, 200-butterfly, and 400-freestyle relay.
