CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Only days after leaving the Queen City with a pair of third-place finishes in the 2022 BMC Championships, Carson-Newman swim will head back to Charlotte this weekend for action in the Royal Open.
C-N, ranked 9th on the women's side and 16th on the men's side, were in action last week as the 2022 Bluegrass Mountain Conference Championships came and went.
After the four-day event concluded, Carson-Newman once more saw a pair of top-three finishes as the Eagles finished in third place overall on both sides. The men's team scored 1121 points while the women posted an astounding 1152.2 points. Queens and Wingate finished first and second, respectively.
Over the four days of events, the Eagles were able to set numerous top event times in program history, including three new program records in the women's and men's 100-yard breaststroke and the men's 200-yard medley relay.
"Overall a very good weekend filled with lots of lifetime and season bests," head coach Jordan Taylor said. "A few have really improved their chances of getting invited to NCAA national championships as well as many changes have been made to C-N's top 5."
This year, the Eagles will be competing alongside competition from the host Queens (N.C.) as well as fellow BMC members Wingate and Lenoir-Rhyne. The quartet of BMC schools will be joined in the pool by Colorado-Mesa and Emory.
The last time Carson-Newman was in action in the Royal Open came during the 2018-19 season. In the last C-N appearance at this meet, there were various notable swims. Some notable swims throughout the weekend in attempts to improve on the national rankings included freshman Andrei Ungur who earned the second-fastest time in program history in the 100-yard butterfly and first in the prelims, topping a time his brother previously set, touching the wall at 48.57 seconds.
Ungur also turned in a season-best time in the 50 freestyle at 20.85 seconds to go along with a fourth-place finish in the 200-yard individual medley.
"We had some good times and some season best swims this weekend but we will have to see where we stand after everyone else is done racing," said Taylor. "There were some improvements in some events. Andre could possibly qualify for two events as a freshman so we are in good position for some of our swimmers but I'm looking forward to what we can do after the field is announced."
Jon Lancaster collected the top spot in the 200 IM prelim race checking in with a season-best time of 1:49.40, which sits the senior swimmer at No. 17 in the nation. His time of 1:50.54 in the finals was good enough for third-place.
Mary Northcutt earned first-place in the 50-yard freestyle with a time of 23.78 seconds in the 'A' finals after also earning the top spot in the prelim race with a time of 23.57, just .05 seconds than her fastest swim of the season. She currently sits at No. 30 in the nation in the event with teammates Elly Culp (23.34) at No. 17 and Lisa Postma (23.16) tied for seventh.
The action gets underway for C-N from the Levine Aquatic Center Friday morning with event prelims at 10 a.m. Then, Friday will showcase event finals starting at 5 p.m. before the second day of action commences on Saturday. Saturday's prelims will begin at 10 a.m. while the event finals will start at 4 p.m.
Unfortunately, there will be no livestream of the two-day event, but live results can be found by fans via Meet Mobile under "Royal Open."
"The mood is great, although it is a last chance meet, there is less pressure compared with conference and so the swimmers are ready just to give it their very best and see if that will get them a trip to NCAA's," Taylor said.
Be sure to keep up with the Carson-Newman swim team all across C-N's social media platforms and on cneagles.com.
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