Presidents’ Athletic Conference Championships

GROVE CITY, Pennsylvania, February 15. THE Grove City College men's swimming and diving team successfully defended its Presidents' Athletic Conference title Saturday night by winning the team title at the 19th Grove City College Invitational/PAC Championships. The Wolverines accumulated 949 team points to earn the title. The Grove City women earned their first PAC title since 1999 Saturday night by winning the 19th Grove City Invitational/PAC Championships. The Wolverines accumulated 833.5 team points to out-distance Westminster (759.5) and Washington & Jefferson (735).

The meet also played the role of championship for the Alleggheny Mountain Collegiate Conference. In the meet-within-the-meet, Penn St. Behrend's men and women captured their third AMCC title in as many years. Frostburg State was the runner-up by a mere six points on the women's side, while Penn State Altoona finished second for the men.

The Behrend women's team was led by Krystal Kovach (Scott Township, PA/ Chartiers Valley). Kovach won both the one and three meter diving championships with NCAA qualifying scores. The men's high point scorer Behrend's Josh Weaver (Franklin, PA/Franklin). Weaver scored 43 points, finishing first in the 100 yard freestyle and 200 yard freestyle, and second in the 500 yard freestyle event.

The Westminster men and women placed second behind host Grove City. In addition to the 17 PAC titles earned by Westminster swimmers out of the 40 total events, the Titans achieved 17 news school records (13 women's, 4 men's), 10 new PAC records (6 women's, 4 men's), two automatic qualifying times for the NCAA Division III Women's Swimming and Diving Championship, and 35 (16 women's, 19 men's) provisional "B" cut qualifying times for the NCAA Championships.

Westminster head coach Rob Klamut was named PAC Women's Swimming Coach of the Year. Westminster junior Emily Dressler (Hummelstown, Pa./Mount Calvary Christian) and senior Megan Mier (Copley, Ohio/Revere) shared PAC Women's Swimming Most Valuable Performer honors. GCC Head coach Dave Fritz earned the meet's Coach of the Year award while Courage earned PAC Most Valuable Performer honors along with the Invitational's High Point Award. It is Grove City's 14th PAC title and its 22nd conference title overall. The Wolverines also won eight Penn-Ohio Conference titles from 1954 until 1968.

Dressler and Mier each collected four PAC titles. Dressler won the 200-, 500- and 1650-yard freestyles and also helped Westminster win the 400 medley relay. Mier won the 100 butterfly, 200 backstroke, and swam legs of the winning 200 and 400 medley relays.

Freshman Caitlin Lehberger (New Wilmington, Pa./Wilmington) captured five events, the 100 and 200 breaststrokes, the 200 individual medley, and the 200 and 400 medley relays. Junior Natalie Rambish (Erie, Pa./Fairview) took three events, the 100 backstroke and the 200 and 400 medley relays. Caitlin Lehberger (100 breaststroke) and Rambish (100 backstroke) automatically qualified for the NCAA Division III Championships.

Two Westminster men's swimmers collected two PAC titles, including senior Conor Simpson (Monroeville, Pa./Gateway) in the 200 butterfly and the 500 freestyle and sophomore Aaron Whisman (Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio/Akron Firestone) in the 200 freestyle and the 400 freestyle relay.

The other Titan men winning individual PAC titles included senior Chris Lehberger (New Wilmington, Pa./Wilmington) in the 200 breaststroke and junior Ben Gutmann (Cranberry Twp., Pa./Seneca Valley) in the 100 breaststroke. Chris Lehberger becomes just the third Westminster swimmer in the history of the program to win a conference title in the same event for four straight years.

Three Grove City performers earned wins Saturday night. Freshman Josh Kim (Frederick, Md./New Life Christian) won the 1650 in a school-record time of 16 minutes, 19.70 seconds. Kim also provisionally qualifies for the NCAA Championships with that effort.

The quartet of freshman Jenna Richert (Sewickley, Pa./Quaker Valley), sophomore Lauren Baur (North Wales, Pa./North Penn), freshman Emily Kramer (Ankeny, Iowa/Homeschooled) and sophomore Sarah Page (Colorado Springs, Colo./Pine Creek) capped Grove City's championship effort by winning the 400 free relay in a school-record time of 3 minutes, 33.06 seconds. That time also provisionally qualifies the relay team for the NCAA Championships.

Page also won the 100 free in 53.15 seconds Saturday night. In the preliminaries, she posted a Grove City-record and provisional standard time of 52.75.

Senior Caleb Courage (Shippensburg, Pa./Shippensburg) won the 100 free in a Grove City-record time of 44.40 seconds, which automatically qualifies him for the NCAA Championships. He edged senior teammate Tim Whitbeck (Saegertown, Pa./Saegertown), who took second with an NCAA-qualifying time of 44.82.

Special thanks to Grove City for contributing this report.

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