Penn State Multi-Team Meet

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pennsylvania, November 9. THE Penn State men's and women's swimming and diving teams opened their respective quad and tri-meets on Friday night with very strong performances. After nine events each on the men's and women's side, the women's team leads all three of their dual meets while the men's team leads one of its duals and is tied in the other.

The women lead Michigan State by a 126-41 margin, top Purdue by a 118-49 score, and also are on top of Virginia 106-60. The men lead Michigan State 91-76 and are tied with Virginia 83.5-83.5. Only Purdue's women's team is in attendance at this meet.

The women placed first in seven out of the eight swimming events contested on the night and in seven out of nine events overall. Winners of events included the 200 freestyle relay team of Michelle Myers, Kelly Nelson, Molly Crispell and Sarah Baker, Nelson in the 500 free, Kaitlin O'Brien in the 200 IM, Caitlin Meehan in the 100 breaststroke, Daphne Skelos in the 200 backstroke, Myers in the 100 free and the 400 medley relay team of Myers, Meehan, Nelson and Baker.

The men's team placed first in half of the swimming events, four out of eight, and four out of nine events overall. They were led by a pair of first places in the two relays. The 200 free relay team of Basil Kaaki, Sean Swanepoel, Vincent Reydams and Rob Felty came in first as did the 400 medley relay team of Pat Schirk, Kyle Miranda, Tim Williams and Swanepoel. Individually, Schirk captured first in the 200 back while Williams won the 200 fly.

The women's team continued to swim some blistering early-season times as the Nittany Lions recorded nine new NCAA `B' provisional qualifying times on the first night of this meet. In the 500 free, Nelson's winning time of 4:49.35 was closer to the `A' automatic qualifying time than the `B' time. As the women often do, they dominated the distance event as Stephanie Roop placed third in 4:51.99 followed by Kailey Morris in 4:54.00. Both times were also `B' times.

In the 200 IM, O'Brien won with a `B' time of 2:01.91, which was once again closer to the `A' time than the `B'. Kaire Haglund finished third in 2:03.87, just under the `B' time. In the 100 breast, Meehan and Abby Hoisington finished 1-2 and both in `B' times. Meehan, who had previously recorded a `B' time in the 100 breast in Penn State's first dual meet of the year, lowered that time to 1:02.41, almost a full second. Hoisington, meanwhile, clocked her first `B' cut of the year at 1:03.49, just under the standard.

Daphne Skelos's win in the 200 back gave her a `B' cut of 2:00.69, once again just under the standard. Myers did the same in winning the 100 free in :50.86, coming in just .04 of a second under the cut.
Daphne Skelos swam an NCAA 'B' time in winning the 200 back.

In the 200 fly, Morris and Haglund both swam `B' cuts in finishing second and third. Both also previously swam `B' times in the first dual meet and Haglund lowered her cut but .13 of a second. Alexandra Young just missed a `B' cut in finishing third in 2:02.97. The 200 free relay team just missed a `B' time by just .09 of a second.

On the men's side, Schirk, the school-record holder in the 200 back, recorded the first men's NCAA `B' cut of the year in winning the 200 back in 1:46.51. Dan Fimbianti finished third in the event.

Elsewhere for the men, Sean Biedermann led the way in the 200 IM with a third place finish in 1:53.16. Miranda tied for third in the 100 breast at :57.95 and Kaaki finished third in the 100 free with a time of :45.88.

In the two diving events that were held on Friday night, Courtney Adlam and Ilana Zeises finished sixth and seventh, respectively in the women's three-meter springboard event. In the men's one-meter, the Bonner twins, Justin and Josh, placed third and fourth with Justin just missing an NCAA Zone qualifying score with a tally of 292.60. Josh Myers placed sixth.

The two-day meet will conclude on Saturday at 11:00 a.m.

Special thanks to Penn State for contributing this report.

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