CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Day one of the Bluegrass Mountain Championships placed both the Carson-Newman swims in third place in the team rankings at the Mecklenburg County Aquatic Center.
The women's side collected 83 points in the first wave of events sitting behind Wingate with 120 and day one leader Queens.
In the men's BMC division, the Eagles grabbed 180 points trailing the Queens Royals who have 201 and Wingate who holds steady at 215.
"Overall it was a good start to the meet," Coach Jordan Taylor stated. "Had a bit of a mixed bag but there were a few standouts and some personal bests from some of our swimmers."
The Eagles 'A' team of Mary Northcutt, Maggie Melhorn, Laurel Sankowski & Elly Culp turned in a third-place finish in the 200-yard medley relay with Northcutt and Sankowski posting best times. As a team they finished the relay in 1:44.12 nearly being edged by Wingate.
Queens took first in the event at 1:38.49, a new season-best for the Royals by nearly three full seconds.
The 800 freestyle relay team of Melhorn, Margaret Stansberry, Lisa Postma & Lexy Raybon also earned a third-place time, which earned a new season-best in the event. The time 7:30.08 moved up to 9th in the country.
Queens and Wingate claimed the No. 1 and 2 spots in the 800 free relay and both prove to be favorites in the Championships with the Royals ranked as the No. 2 team in the country and the Bulldogs at No. 14.
The 1000-yard freestyle was one of the better events of the day for the C-N women's squad as the senior Raybon collected a fifth place time at 10:30.89 posting a new season-best in the event.
Kerry Holding and Eliza Petersen came in 14th and 15th respectively as both swimmers collected best times. Holding, a native of Lancashire, United Kingdom, turned in a time of 10:59.75 with Petersen on her heels at 11:01.68.
"I was really pleased with those swims," Taylor added. "Lexy moved up from 10th to 5th to get on the podium. I was happy with what they all did in the event."
Standout swims from the men included Paden Duke who recorded a time of 9:54.24 in the 1000 yard free, marking a new season-best for the sophomore from Memphis, Tenn.
Freshman Casey Charles earned a top-eight finish in the same event with a new career best time of 9:36.28, nearly 17 seconds better than his prior top time.
Live video and results are available at the site of the BMC Championship Central.
Preliminary swims for Thursday, Feb 15 are set to take place at 10:00 a.m. with the evenings final swims at 5:00 p.m.
-CN-