CHARLOTTE, N.C. – The Carson-Newman swim team continued to rewrite their record book during day three of the Bluegrass Mountain Conference Championships at the Mecklenburg Country Aquatics Center in Charlotte, N.C. The Eagles torched five school records on Friday, added their second victory of the event and Robert Griswold (Freehold, N.J.) topped a pair of his own American records.
"I'm really happy with our overall performance," swim coach Jordan Taylor said. "I'm excited about our standout and record breaking swims. A number of our student-athletes are in a great spot to qualify for nationals. These are the results they've been working towards and they're getting them. Overall, we've seen a lot of gusty swims."
It didn't take long for C-N to reach its first milestone of the night. In the evening's initial race, the women's 200 free relay, the group of Mary Northcutt (Huntsville, Ala.), Lisa Postma (Leiden, Holland), Elly Culp (West End, N.C.) and Margaret Stansberry (Knoxville, Tenn.) clocked in at 1:33.38, placing them second, but also besting the previous program record by less than half-a-second. Postma, Stansberry and Culp teamed with Samantha Starnes to set the previous record last year.
Three races later, it was Jon Lancaster (Ringgold, Ga.) posting a new Eagle best in the men's 400 IM. He, too, earned a second place finish, but with a time of 3:57.12, Lancaster shattered his own school record, which he set in 2016, by more than four seconds.
In the women's 200 free, Stansberry earned the top spot on the podium by outracing seven competitors and hitting the wall in 1:48.21. In doing so, she beat C-N's previous top mark of 1:48.66, which the junior set just one year ago.
"Margaret Stansberry was beaten by one one-hundredth of a second last year," Taylor said. "She executed a great race and put together an outstanding performance when it mattered. I was also really pleased with Jon Lancaster. He came in with high expectations and dropped a lot of time."
Maggie Melhorn was the next Eagle to take down her own program record when she put forth her best effort in the women's 100 breaststroke. The Knoxville, Tenn. native, who swam this race in 1:03.36 last year, completed it in 1:02.37 this time around, which was good enough to place her third.
The final change to the school record book of the night came courtesy of Andrei Roman (Medias, Romania), who erased the old mark in the men's 100 breaststroke. He reached the finish in 54.74, eclipsing the previous best of 55.68, set in 2014 by Kent Eldreth.
Griswold also continued a remarkable week with two new American records in the S8 class that he set during the day's time trials. He swam the 50 back in 27.67 and the 100 back in 56.42. In both cases, Griswold shot down American marks that he owned. This brings his total to six new entries in the U.S. record book over the last three days.
Both the men's and women's teams will enter the final day of the BMC Championships in third place, with Queens owning both first place spots and Wingate in second.
Saturday is the last day of races in Charlotte with the finals beginning at 6 p.m. The event will once again be broadcast live in ESPN 3 and Watch ESPN. Afterwards, cneagles.com will have a recap going over all the action to go with full results.
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