Nike Invitational: Day One

GAMBIER, Ohio, December 4. KENYON College sophomore swimmer Nathaniel Smith (Knoxville, TN/Central) set a pool record Thursday night and also set the early tone for what should be a very competitive Nike Invitational, a three-day event being held at the Kenyon Aquatics Center.

Two distance events were completed Thursday night and the University of Pennsylvania held the standing’s top spot with 143 points. Kenyon was second with 97 points and Carnegie Mellon University was a close third with 82 points. Colgate University (50 points), Davidson College (41), and Johns Hopkins University (28) rounded out the standings.

Smith smashed the pool record in the 1,650-yard freestyle by clocking in at 15:32.12. He claimed first place, just ahead of James Fee from the University of Pennsylvania. Fee, who owned the previous pool record of 15:35.71, clocked in at 15:32.34 Thursday night. Penn swimmers captured three of the next four spots to jump out to an early lead in the point standings.

That lead increased when Penn won the evening’s only other event, the 800-yard freestyle relay. Fee swam the anchor leg on that Penn squad, which turned in another pool record time of 6:40.05. Kenyon’s relay team of Blair Withington (Hastings, New Zealand/Hasting Boys’), Blake Preston (New Rochelle, NY/New Rochelle), Michael Mpitsos (Newport, OR/Newport), and Michael Machala (Twin Falls, ID /Twin Falls) took second place with a time of 6:40.43.

Both Smith’s time and the Lords’ relay time easily cleared the NCAA standard for automatic entry into the NCAA Championship meet.

For the women, the books were closed on two distance events Thursday night, the opening night of the three-day Nike Invitational held at the Kenyon College Aquatics Center. NCAA Division I teams held the first two spots in the early standings and the host Ladies were tied for third place in the seven-team field.

The University of Kansas won the first event of the night, the 800-yard freestyle relay, with a pool record time of 7:19.61. Kenyon’s relay squad of Catarina Oliveira (Sao Paulo, Brazil/Colegio Sao Luis), Tina Ertel (Halle, Germany/Sportgymnasium Halle), Lauren Brady (Tyngsboro, MA/Phillips Exeter), and Danielle Arad (Yorba Linda, CA/Tarbut V’Torah) also clipped the old pool record of 7:29.42, but had to settle for second place after turning in a time of 7:25.96. The consolation for the Ladies was that their time was nearly five seconds under the NCAA’s automatic qualifying standard and over four seconds faster than the previous Kenyon varsity record of 7:30.17. Oliveira led off the relay with a split of 1:51.53, which was good for another NCAA automatic cut.

The other event contested Thursday night was the 1,650-yard freestyle, which was dominated by swimmers from the University of Pennsylvania. Casey Barnes-Waychus won the event by clocking in at 16:58.84. Two of the next three finishers were also from Penn, allowing the Quakers to take an early day-one lead. Kenyon’s best finisher in the event was defending Division III national champion Kaitlyn Meirs (Cream Ridge, NJ/Peddie), who took ninth place with a time of 17:26.38.

The teams will head into Friday’s events with Penn holding down first place with 131 team points. Colgate University is second with 73 points, while Kenyon and Davidson colleges are tied for third with 67 points apiece.

Special thanks to Kenyon for contributing this report.

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