CINCINNATI, Ohio – The Carson-Newman swim team set a new pool record in the men's 200 freestyle relay and broke four program records in the first day of competition in the Bearcats Midseason Invitational at the Keating Aquatics Center at the University of Cincinnati in Cincinnati, Ohio.
"We had a great start this morning," coach Jordan Taylor said, "but the night swims were awesome. We got off to a great start with the relays and kept that going through the whole evening. I couldn't be happier with performance of the team."
The night got off to a flying start for the Eagles with great efforts in the opening relays on both sides. In the women's 200 free, Mary Northcutt (Huntsville, Ala.), Elly Culp (West End, N.C.), Lisa Postma (Leiden, Holland) and Margaret Stansberry (Knoxville, Tenn.) clocked in at 1:33.27. That time stands as the best in program history, bettering the old mark of 1:33.74. On the men's side, the group of Jonny Goss (Heiskell, Tenn.), Seth Hughes (Kingston, Tenn.), Pijus MacKevicius (Kaunas, Lithuania) and Sam Schechter (Knoxville, Tenn.) swam the 200 free relay in 1:21.44, the best time in the history of the Keating Aquatics Center and just over a second off the C-N record.
Two events later, Marcelo Figueiredo (Porto Alegre, Brazil), who broke the Carson-Newman record in the 500 freestyle in the morning, broke it again with a mark of 4:30.45, almost two seconds faster than his earlier time.
Stansberry then proceeded to set a new C-N record in the 200 individual medley. She hit the wall at 2:03.20, sixth-tenths of a second better than the previous program record, which she set earlier in 2016.
In the men's 200 individual medley, Jon Lancaster (Ringgold, Ga.) captured first place with a time of 1:51.59, leaving six Bearcats in his wake. Schechter collected a win in the 50 free, swimming that race in 20.38. Four of the top five spots in that event were claimed by Eagles.
A stellar day in the pool for coach Taylor's charges concluded with the women shattering another record, this one in the 400 medley relay. The time of 3:46.78 posted by Stansberry, Maggie Melhorn (Knoxville, Tenn.), Culp and Postma was 14-hundreths of a second better than the previous mark.
"Everyone stepped up," Taylor said. "We were a little apprehensive at the beginning, but the team tonight was in every race and made the opposition work for every point. We were underdogs and our swimmers raced as hard as they could. They were ready to go and take the challenge to [our opponents]. We're keeping the ball rolling and everyone is supportive of each other. We're excited for even better swims tomorrow."
The University of Cincinnati claimed first place in seven of the ten events on Thursday night, while the third school competing, Indiana State University, was not able to pick up a victory.
Two more days of competition remain in Cincinnati. Results from Friday as well as a recap of the day will be posted on cneagles.com.
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