After tonight, I feel like calling yesterday exciting was an amateur move. We'll chalk it up to first day exciting, which is now very different than second day exciting. However, I don't want to make this mistake again. For descriptions of today, we'll stick with synonyms of exciting such as thrilling, riveting, and electrifying. (Although, I do worry the final one may be something I'd like to use for day four, but I'll avoid getting ahead of myself.)
After this morning's prelims, I got to talk to the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee's Head Coach Erica Janssen. Both the Panther's women and men were recognized throughout the season as top mid-major programs.
Coach Janssen had big plans for tonight for both the men and women.
For the finals, we started with the 500-yard Freestyle, the women's and later the men's. For the ladies, Danielle Wenger of UWM was seeded first in lane four. Wenger won the 1000-yard Freestyle championship last night and beat her own record. She seemed to feel good today but had different apprehensions about her competition.
"Molley" being Molley Pipkorn of Wright State was looking for something similar to her victory from last year.
Pipkorn, seeded second, led for the early part of the race. Wenger took control with about three laps to go, and, similar to yesterday, it was a race with the record books from there. Wenger won the championship 4:52.35, and beat the record by a little over 2 seconds.
In the men's race, I expected big things from the top seeds. Zachary Kraai of Milwaukee looks forward not just to his second championship race after getting the first seed in this one (He took second in last night's 1000-yard Free championship), but also his next three years (yes, three, he's only a freshman!).
But then there were also my big expectations of another Zach, this one of UIC, Zach Van Swol. These two took second and third, respectively, in last night's 1000-yard Freestyle. Then, it was Mark deSwardt who took the championship. Without deSwardt in the pool, it would be someone else. Who better than the only senior in the final heat, Green Bay's Alex Hill. He pulled ahead by an entire body length with a quarter of the race remaining, and he raced it like a veteran from there. He finished in 4:27.21. When I talked to Hill after the race, he explained that he raced the morning just to "make it in the top 8". Surprised to be the only senior, he's also excited to see what his competition will do in the coming years. Kraai took second, while Van Swol followed in third.
We followed that race with the 200-Yard IM. It's Fly, Back, Breast, and Free. And they're good and fast, as expected. For the women, Amber Bartholomew of Green Bay was seeded first, and she raced like it in the final. She won the championship with a time of 2:05.03. For the men, Cleveland State senior Jakub Dobies was seeded first, and he took Bartholomew's lead and won the championship. That wasn't enough for him though, as he took the Horizon League record racing the IM in 1:49.09.
I barely have words to describe how fast the 50-yard Free goes. When it ended, I didn't believe that it had been longer than ten seconds. Neither did Green Bay's Alyssa Danielson. I talked with her afterward, and she said that even when she's racing it goes by just that fast. However fast she went (23.50) was fast enough though, and she won the (really) short of it.
After that close race, I thought I'd had enough. No dice. The men took the stage (or their spots in the water) and proved me wrong. After an extremely close race, UIC's Brian Anderson pulled ahead to finish in 20.39. Milwaukee's Jake Kalinowski took second.
Diving came up next. It allows for a sigh of relief during the warm up, and then I feel like I'm holding my breath the rest of the way through. The women's 1-meter was up tonight, and it was a whole different competition than the men's 3-meter (sounds obvious). We saw more sevens tonight than we did last night. Before it seemed to be a novelty. Tonight, it was necessary to keep up with the competition. Lauren McGraw of Green Bay took the top slot tonight with a score of 283.80, over ten points ahead of second places Kelsey George (Milwaukee).
The last event of the evening was the women's and men's 400-yard Medley Relay. As always, the ladies started it off. When they walked in, the crowd started to rise. Cheers, chants, whistles, and claps became constant and expected. It was a competitive atmosphere. Cleveland State came in seeded first, but everyone had their eyes on the prize. In the end, last year's ladies, the Green Bay Phoenix, hit the wall first, over a second before second place finisher UIC. The Phoenix ended it at 3:46.43.
The men's competition had everyone on their feet before the men finished the backstroke. It was a close fight. And it was back and forth from then on, Cleveland State leading for quite a bit of the race. UIC's Brian Anderson came up in the clutch, and beating his Cleveland State competitor (Berry Thompson) by nearly an entire two seconds. The Flames took the top on this one, finished in 3:17.11. As this one finished, and I looked around the natatorium, I don't know if anyone was sitting down. It was so close at times, and the come backs looked to big that everyone had to see it.
That was my day. It started and ended with adrenaline. A lot of NCAA "B" Cuts came about today, and the teams seem to be enjoying their time together and seeing successful teammates and competitors. I'll be back here to catch you up tomorrow night. Tune into the live blog again (7pm ET), the live video (7pm ET), and Horizon Headlines at 3pm ET tomorrow. Thanks everyone, and I'll see you tomorrow.
