2021 ECAC Winter Championships
- December 3-5, 2021
- East Meadow, N.Y.
- Final Results
Courtesy: ECAC Sports
EAST MEADOW, N.Y. – UMBC men’s swimming and Columbia University women’s swimming completed their dominant run through the ECAC Winter Championships Sunday, Dec. 5. It is UMBC’s first men’s winter title since 2003 and fourth overall. It is the first ECAC Winter Championship title for Columbia women’s swimming.
In the men’s championship, UMBC scored 3,075.5 points to beat Long Island University by 1896 points. The LIU Sharks scored 1179.5 points as runners up, nudging ahead of third-place Monmouth University (1178). LIU held a 51-point lead over Monmouth entering Sunday night’s finals.
UMBC beat two more meet record Sunday, as junior Niklas Weigelt won the men’s 100 freestyle in 43.87, topping NYU alum Jeremiah Crowley’s 2014 record by .10 of a second. Retrievers sophomore Daniel Nicusan shaved 4.5 seconds off his prelim time Sunday to win the men’s 200 breastroke and top a 2018 record time of 2:01.12.
Five of Sunday’s finals went to UMBC. Kai Wisner never trailed in his 1650 free victory, posting a 15:34.94 time, en route to Male Swimmer of the Meet honors. Ethan Riser won the 200 fly at 1:47.51. UMBC also won the 400 freestyle relay. Niklas Weigelt, Tiago Asakawa, Ryan Harding and Bode Neale
Monmouth’s Callan Smith won the 200 backstroke in 1:47.11, beating Stevens alumnus Ravi Sun’s 2014 record of 1:47.74.
Columbia won the women’s title with 2218 points ahead of UMBC’s women with 1909 points. LIU was third with 1085 points.
Two Lions swimmers set ECAC Winter Championship meet records during Sunday morning’s preliminaries. Mary Pruden beat the 2-minute mark in the 200-yard backstroke with a time of 1:58.23, edging out UMBC’s Caroline Sargent (1:58.83). They were two of four swimmers in both the prelims and finals to swim faster than the record of 2:01.26, which was set by LIU Post’s Karis Fuller in 2017. Emily Macdonald also set a meet record for Columbia, with a 100-yard freestyle prelim time of 50.60, topping the 2012 record of 51.12, previously set by Stevens University’s Lou Moores. However, Macdonald did not compete in the finals.
Columbia’s Clare Larsen, Olivia Jublin, Tina Le and Emily Long worked together to knock more than 4 secodns off their prelim time to win the 400-yard freestyle relay and set a meet record at 3:24.61.
LIU also snagged a first-place finish on the day with Ella Johnson breaking the meet record in the 200 butterfuly at 2:00.73. She was .21 shy of the record (2:03.04) Sunday morning in the prelims.
Allegra Walker took gold in the 1650 free, passing St Francis College’s Mariajose Lopez in the penultimate lap to win in a time of 17:01.03 to beat Lopez by 1.82.
Monmouth’s only women’s gold of the day came in the 100 freestyle, as Alexandra Ho swam an 51.18, .06 shy of the meet record, to beat Columbia’s Clare Larsen (51.35). UMBC’s Jenna Gwinn won the 200-yard breaststroke with a time of 2:17.67, a .25 win over Columbia’s Ashley Hu.