KNOXVILLE, Tenn. – The Carson-Newman swim team secured lifetime-best times across the board and saw finishes worthy of National Championship qualification at day two of the University of Tennessee Invitational in Knoxville.
C-N, ranked 12th on the women's side and 17th on the men's in Division II, finished the day in fifth place on both sides against multiple nationally-ranked Division I programs. The women have amassed 114 points while the men have put 138 on the board.
"I'd be hard-pressed to find a swim that wasn't a season-best over the past two days," Carson-Newman coach Jordan Taylor said.
Freshman Manon Compagner, fresh off of winning her first Bluegrass Mountain Conference Female Swimmer of the Week Award, finished with a time of 54.52 in the B final of the 100-yard butterfly, the second-fastest time in program history and a time that is likely to qualify her for the NCAA National Championships in March.
Compagner also swam the 200-yard chunk of the 800-yard freestyle relay and recorded the fourth-fastest time in C-N history and also a time that will qualify her for Nationals.
"She's just naturally a really talented athlete and she's really engaged," Taylor said. "She's been learning to race at the college level, her continual development in the skills of starts, turns and transitions. In her races, her pace, how many breaths she's taking, all those little things she's working to get better on. We knew she was going to swim fast but because of her attention to those details, she's been able to get everything out of her races and she's been able to develop very quickly."
The women's 200-yard medley relay finished in a time of 1:42.92, ahead of groups belonging to the University of Georgia and the University of Tennessee, the 14th and 13th ranked teams in the nation at the Division I level, respectively. The time qualified the group to go to the aforementioned National Championships.
Freshman Kailee Morgan (Greenville, S.C.) finished the C final of the women's 100-yard breaststroke at a time of 1:03.54. It was the second-fastest time ever set in the event in C-N history and right on the borderline to qualify on the national level.
Senior Mary Northcutt (Huntsville, Ala.) swam the C final of the women's 100-yard breaststroke in 57.16, the fourth-fastest time an Eagle has ever swam the event.
The women then finished the 800-yard freestyle relay in 7:36.79, again beating a group of swimmers from the University of Tennessee.
On the men's side, the 200-yard medley relay team of Andrei Ungur (Romania), Ryland Darling (Arlington, Tenn.), Ivo Kunzle (Asuncion, Paraguay) and Chad Andoljsek (Slovenia) completed the event at a time of 1:29.28, surpassing times set by squads from Georgia and the University of Virginia, the seventh-ranked Division I program in the country.
Ungur, also fresh off of his first-ever BMC Male Swimmer of the Week Award win, set a personal lifetime best in the A final of the 100-yard backstroke at 47.27, a full two seconds faster than his previous best. He then finished the 100-yard fly in 57.83 seconds, which could be good enough to qualify for the National Championships.
Sophomore Mathew George (Manchester, England) broke a C-N school record in the 200-yard freestyle with a time of 1:38.07.
"For me, the whole team, right across the roster, people are making finals when we were unsure if they were able to make finals at this level of meet," Taylor said.
The third and final day of the invitational wraps up tomorrow with the finals beginning at 6 p.m.
