WINGATE, N.C. – The Carson-Newman swim team lost on both the no.13 men's and no.14 women's sides in a dual-meet against South Atlantic Conference rival Wingate on Saturday afternoon.
The women lost the dual-meet 216-99 while the men were taken down 196-119. The Eagles were unable to have a repeat performance of last season's dual-meet which saw the men defeat then-ranked no.10 Wingate 170.5 to 144.50.
"Just little things that weren't as good as we'd like them to be," Carson-Newman coach Jordan Taylor said. "This is a very, very strong program. They put together some very good races. They were fired up on the guy's side to make sure they won the meet this weekend."
Wingate was able to do just that by dominating the relays, winning seven of eight such events. Carson-Newman's lone relay win came in the men's 200-yard freestyle, led by Chad Andoljsek (Slovenia) at 20.35.
The Eagles were more competitive in the individual swims which saw the Bulldogs win 14 while C-N took ten.
There were several bright spots despite the loss as senior Caleb Howell (Easley, S.C.) broke two pool records with first-place finishes in the 200-yard breaststroke and the 400-yard individual medley with times of 2:04.62 and 4:05.95, respectively. Last week's Bluegrass Mountain Conference Male Swimmer of the Week also took home first in the 200-yard individual medley.
"For him, there was a lot more pressure going into this than there was at the King meet," Taylor said. "He was going up against some All-Americans in breaststroke and individual medley so there was a bit more pressure. We had a deal that if anyone broke a pool record they could get Krispy Kreme donuts after the event. Caleb really likes them so I knew he was going for it and I think he was pretty pleased with himself."
Sophomore Matt George (Manchester, England) won the 500-yard freestyle in a season-best time of 4:38.05. He also finished first in the 200-yard freestyle and took second place in the 200-yard butterfly.
Sophomore Andrei Ungur (Romania) made his season debut and was victorious in the 100-yard backstroke.
Multiple freshmen shined at the event on the women's side. Amongst them was freshman Magnon Compagner (Balkbrug, Netherlands) who finished first in the 100-yard freestyle and 100-yard butterfly.
Freshmen Rachel Peden (Boiling Springs, S.C.) and Linda Ungerboeck (Vienna, Austria) took third and fourth, respectively, in the 1000-yard freestyle. Their times of 10:44.73 and 10:44.33 were also good enough for the third and fourth-best times Carson-Newman program history.
"I know they're going to swim faster than that as the season progresses, but this just gives you perspective," Taylor said. "For them to swim that fast in a dual-meet, it was just something to highlight, for those freshmen to already be in our top-five record board."
Taylor believes the two young Eagles will be chasing history for the duration of the campaign.
"They've got the rest of the season to continue to build from that, I think they have the potential to be one and two on that record board," Taylor said. "I don't know in which order, but they'll be battling for that all season."
Senior Mary Northcutt (Huntsville, Ala.), last week's BMC female swimmer of the week, was victorious in the 50-yard freestyle.
While the Eagles didn't match the same level of dominance they reached in their win at the King Invitational on Oct. 4 and 5 in which the team won 32 of 36 races, Taylor thinks progress was made.
"There were plenty of positives," Taylor said. "I know we would've rather have come away with the win but we also wanted to look better than we did for the majority of our swim at King and I think we did that."
The Carson-Newman swim team next competes on Nov. 8 and 9 at the Emory Invitational in Atlanta, Georgia. Be sure to keep up with the team across C-N's social media platforms and on cneagles.com.
