The Ohio State Buckeye men and women hosted the Big Red of Denison tonight and the result was all Buckeye. McCorkle Aquatic Pavilion was rocking with the scarlet and gray, as the OSU women owned their meet in a final score of 199.5 to 79.5 and the men dominated 174 to 97.
Women’s Meet
Ohio State set the tone for the duel by winning the 400 medley relay first off the bat. A time of 3:54.23 was enough to get the job done and kick-off the momentum for the rest of the meet. The Buckeye women would go on and win each and every swimming event, save for the women’s 50 freestyle. In that splash n’ dash event Buckeye Cheyenne Meek and Big Red swimmer Carolyn Kane finished in the exact same time of 24.05 for a tie in first place.
The only women’s double winner on the night was Taylor Vargo, who clocked the winning marks in both breaststroke races. Her time of 1:04.31 topped the field tonight, but Vargo has been as fast as 1:03.57 in the Buckeye’s double duel with Notre Dame and Purdue. In the 200 tonight, Vargo registered a 2:19.83, although her top time of this young season is the 2:16.24 she swam at the FGCU Eagle Classic last month.
Additional wins by Lindsay Clary in the 200 fly (2:03.78), Elizabeth Auckley in the 100 back (58.29) and Katy Luchansky in the 100 free (52.23) set the Buckeyes point total surging too far to be reachable for the Denison squad.
Men’s Meet
It was a one-sided affair for the men as well, as the Buckeyes were simply too much for visiting Denison to handle. It started off with the men’s 400 medley relay, where OSU topped the field in a winning time of 3:19.66. Jovan Mitrovic fed off the winning vibe and clocked a 9:23.57 to take the 1000 freestyle victory for the Buckeye men in the first individual event.
Steffen Hillmer registered a time of 1:39.76 in the 200 free, while Andrew Appleby and Dustin Tynes cleaned up the 100 back and 100 breast events for the Buckeyes, taking the wins in times of 50.52 and 57.10, respectively.
Denison did mount some wins in the races in which the OSU men exhibitioned their swimmers. Ryan Stevenson won both the 200 breaststroke (2:12.15) and the 200 IM (1:58.97) to put some points on the board for the Big Red. Teammate Stuart Hohm earned the 500 free victory in a time of 4:50.38, while Andrew Rich was the official winner in the 100 butterfly race (52.38).
Notable exhibition swims for the Buckeye men include Brayden Seal’s 4:28.73 500 free, Matt McHugh’s 48.28 100 fly and Ching Lim’s 1:51.12 200 IM. DJ MacDonald and Tynes also exhibitioned the 200 breaststroke, scoring times of 2:03.09 and 2:05.91, respectively.