Bluegrass Mountain Conference – Men and Women
- Dates: Wednesday, February 11th – Saturday, February 14th, 2015, Prelims 10am/Finals 6pm (Saturday 5pm)
- Location: Mecklenburg County Aquatic Center, Charlotte, NC (Eastern Time Zone)
- Defending Champions: Wingate (Women – 2nd straight), Wingate (Men – 7th straight) (results)
- Live Results: Available via Meet Mobile
- Live Video (Finals only): Available
- Championship Central
The Bluegrass Mountain Conference has been moving to a whole new level over the last several years. This year’s meet seems to be in turbo drive; only 14 events into the meet, we’ve already seen 4 NCAA Division 2 records and 12 BMC meet records go down. It was clear after Day One that we would be in for a fast conference meet. The trend continued on Day Two with four more meet records falling in prelims. Finals were even more spectacular: BMC swimmers rewrote the conference recordbooks in 7 of the 8 events and the Queens men broke another NCAA D2 relay mark.
Queens freshman Patri Castro-Ortega, who had taken 3.2 seconds off the BMC meet record in the 500 free during prelims, dropped another 7.5 seconds to settle the new standard at 4:45.89. That is exactly .20 off the NCAA D2 record. Wingate’s Julie Wessler, who broke the 1000 free meet record on Day One, finished second in 4:56.03. Nikki Johnston of Queens finished third in 4:57.31. The rest of the championship finals was made up of Lovisa Nyman from Limestone (4:59.56), Lillian Gordy (4:59.59) and Meridith Boudreaux (5:01.53) of Queens, Carson-Newman’s Nancy Claire Smith (5:05.56), and Limestone’s Rachel Hickey (5:10.14).
Nick Arakelian of Queens, who had broken the men’s 500 free meet record in prelims with 4:22.65, knocked another 2 seconds off his time in finals to reset the bar at 4:20.49. The NCAA D2 mark is 4:20.26. Arakelian won by a half a pool length, but separating himself from the rest of the field was runner-up Andrew Greenhalgh of Johns Hopkins, who touched in 4:26.15. Third place went to Leif-Henning Kluever of Wingate (4:28.95). He was followed by Alex Menke from Queens (4:29.61), SCAD’s Joel Ax (4:31.13), Oystein Fjeldberg (4:34.20) and Ossian Arvidsson (4:35.13) of Wingate, and Limestone’s Douglas Trigo (4:36.85).
In the women’s 200 IM, Caroline Arakelian sliced another 1.1 seconds off the meet record of 2:01.35 she had set in prelims with a finals swim of 2:00.21. Also under the previous record was second-place finisher Sofia Petrenko of Wingate (2:01.00). Petrenko had led through the backstroke but Arakelian, who would later swim breast on Queens’ medley relay, had the stronger second half. Anna Wisniewski of Hopkins took third (2:03.03), just ahead of teammate Kaitlin Jones (2:04.93). Linda Baron of Queens (2:07.00), Jessika Weiss (2:07.12) and Olga Kosheleva (2:07.36) from Wingate, and Carson-Newman’s Amanda Henderson (2:07.51) rounded out the podium.
Matt Josa of Queens followed with another meet record in the men’s 200 IM. Josa looked like he was shot out of a cannon. He went out strong and was already a body length ahead at the fly-to-back wall. Josa finished in 1:44.32, 2.4 seconds under the BMC record set by Wingate’s Spencer Waganaar in 2014. Inigo Alarcia of Pfeiffer took second in 1:48.71. Then came Felipe Oliveira (1:49.10) of Queens, Wingate’s David Collum (1:49.14), and Ben Taylor (1:49.18), Devyn Hughes (1:50.28), and Nate Dacruz (1:50.86) of Queens.
After Wingate’s Ana Fish broke Ana Bogdanovski’s meet record in the 50 free in prelims with 23.19, we were expecting a great race between the two of them in finals. Good thing no one told Carson-Newman’s Natalie Burnett. Swimming in lane 7, Burnett was first off the blocks, first at the 25 wall, and never let up, finishing first at the wall with a new BMC record of 22.95. That’s an NCAA Division 2 automatic qualifying time; another .51 and it’s an NCAA D2 record. Bogdanovski of JHU (23.11), Emily Reh of Limestone (23.14), and Fish (23.15) were all under the previous mark as well. The rest of the championship final consisted of Alexandra Marshall from Queens (23.36), Armony Dumur of Wingate (23.47) and Queens’ Kristin Diemer (23.67) and Shane Knight (23.68).
Tobias Feigl of Limestone took the men’s 50 free in 20.07. He was challenged by Queens’ Nic Eriksson (20.17), but Feigl had a great finish to secure the gold. Carson Newman’s Sam Schechter (20.29) finished third, just ahead of Austin Sumrall (20.43) of Queens. Issam Zeraidi of Wingate (20.55) placed fifth; Ben Young (20.57)and Paul Ungur (20.62) of Carson-Newman and Zach Phelps of Queens (20.65)followed.
The Queens quartet of Hannah Peiffer (54.49), Arakelian (1:03.04), Alexandra Marshall (54.45), and Castro Ortega (48.69) won the 400 medley relay with a meet-record time of 3:40.67, 5.1 seconds under the previous standard. Johns Hopkins (3:46.08) and Carson-Newman (3:48.74) took second and third.
The Queens men ended the evening with a meet and an NCAA D2 record in the 400 medley relay. 1) Phelps, Zach C 20 2) Eriksson, Nic 21
Phelps (49.57), Eriksson (52.15), Josa (45.51), and Taylor (43.27) combined for 3:10.50, which was 5.2 seconds under the old meet mark and .50 under their own NCAA D2 record, set last year at nationals. Second place went to Wingate (3:17.60), while Limestone (3:18.74) came in third.
Here are the scores after Day Two:
Women
- Queens University of Charlotte 607
- Wingate University 421
- Johns Hopkins University 393
- Carson-Newman University 324
- Limestone Swimming 282
- SCAD 204
- Catawba College 190
- Pfeiffer University 138
- West Virginia Wesleyan College 137
- Fairmont State University 120
- Davis & Elkins College 115
- Converse College 115
- Lenoir Rhyne University 80
Men
- Queens University of Charlotte 627
- Wingate University 365.5
- Limestone Swimming 345.5
- Johns Hopkins University 304
- Carson-Newman University 279
- SCAD 186
- Catawba College 183
- Fairmont State University 175
- Lenoir Rhyne University 145
- Pfeiffer University 139
- Davis & Elkins College 132
- West Virginia Wesleyan College 112