Drury Puts Together Strong Day in Men’s, Women’s NCAA D2 Prelims

GENEVA, Ohio, March 13. ALTHOUGH Wayne State gave the Drury women a run during day one, Drury put together a strong day for both the women and the men as the defending champions are looking to continue their winning ways at the NCAA Division II Championships.

Women’s 200 free relay
Drury’s Yakaterina Rudenko (23.31), Tinsley Andrews (22.95), Tessa Tilton (23.91) and Wai Ting Yu (22.85) topped qualifying in the sprint free relay with a time of 1:33.02. That’s just a second off Drury’s 2009 NCAA D2 record of 1:32.00 that could be in trouble this evening with the excitement provided by a championship swim.

UC San Diego’s Austine Lee, Colleen Daley, Sierra Robbins and Anjali Shakya placed second in 1:33.50, while Queens’ Caroline Arakelian, Lara Marshall, Kristin Diemer and Lauren Mock picked up third in 1:33.61.

Wayne State (1:33.83), Wingate (1:33.87), CSU East Bay (1:33.88), Florida Southern (1:34.37) and West Chester (1:34.59) also made the championship heat this evening.

Men’s 200 free relay
Drury’s Daniel Rzadkowski (19.94), Sean Feher (19.74), Walter Ross (20.48) and Nicholas McCarthy (19.29) came up just short of the NCAA D2 record with a preliminary-qualifying time of 1:19.45 this morning. That’s just off the 1:19.20 set by Drury a year ago, and should be in jeopardy this evening.

Tampa’s Khalid Aldaboos, Jeremy Parker, Runar Borgen and Jordan Augier hit the wall second in 1:20.41 with Wayne State’s Piotr Jachowicz, Soren Holm, Vilanucas Fernandez and Kristian Larsen qualified third overall in 1:20.56.

Limestone (1:20.67), Bridgeport (1:20.70), Saint Leo (1:20.82), UC San Diego (1:21.02) and Missouri S&T (1:21.23) earned the rest of the transfer spots into the championship finale tonight.

Women’s 400 IM
Queens’ Caroline Arakelian had a balanced swim in the distance medley with a top-seeded time of 4:18.81. She split the race 42.13, 31.29, 37.58, 29.61. While other swimmers had faster splits throughout their races, no one had as balanced of a swim as Arakelian.

Delta State’s Melanie Tombers finished second in 4:19.82, while Wayne State’s Kristine Novichenko placed third this morning with a time of 4:20.29. Drury’s Agnieszka Ostrowska qualified third in 4:20.59 as Novichenko and Ostrowska will be battling for all-important team points in the finale as Drury and Wayne State are in a battle for the title.

Bridgeport’s Adeline Martin (4:21.41), Ashland’s Hannah Mattar (4:21.60), IUP’s Allyson Mitidieri (4:21.72) and Colorado Mesa’s Briana Purkapile (4:22.09) finished fifth through eighth in prelims to close out the A final. Drury’s Gretchen Stein made the B final with a 10th-place 4:24.20 that should help with some depth points in the team battle.

Men’s 400 IM
Wingate’s Marko Blazevski raced to a lifetime best in the men’s distance medley with a 3:49.81 for the top seed. He previously had posted a 3:50.12 in the NCAA D2 Championships last year, and could be vying for Piotr Jachowicz’s NCAA D2 mark of 3:47.62 from a year ago.

Nova Southeastern’s Marco Aldabe posted a second-place time of 3:53.38 with Lake Erie’s Julian Milinkovskyi taking third in 3:53.57. Grand Valley’s Sven Kardol also cleared 3:54 with a fourth-place 3:53.99.

UC San Diego’s Zachary Yong (3:54.21), Southern Connecticut’s Raymond Cswerko (3:54.31) and West Chester’s David McCormick (3:54.50) finished fifth through seventh, while Drury’s Kacper Pelczynski qualified eighth in 3:54.70 to continue to pile up points for the defending champions.

Women’s 100 fly
LIU Post’s Joyce Kwok powered her way to a 53.88 for the top time in preliminary qualifying, less than a half-a-second off Li Tao’s 2011 NCAA D2 record of 53.55. Kwok will have some company this evening as both Bridgeport’s Armony Dumur (54.76) and Queens’ Hannah Peiffer (54.95) touched second and third, but both have gone 53 seconds this year.

Alaska Fairbanks’ Margo Adams (55.07), CSU East Bay’s Caitlin Denise (55.33), NMU’s Deborah Lawrence (55.35), UC San Diego’s Naomi Thomas (55.57) and UC San Diego’s Jaclyn Amog (55.60) placed fourth through eighth in qualifying.

In the team battle, Wayne State’s Gloria Martinez Perez earned 12th overall with a 55.97. to gain some points against Drury.

Men’s 100 fly
Queen’s Matt Josa, an early contender for Swimmer of the Meet after taking down the 200 IM last night, put himself in position to win a second title tonight with a 46.32 in the 100-yard fly. He has some time to make up to break Ben Michaelson’s NCAA D2 record of 45.60 from 2003, but the way Josa is going this year it is not out of the question.

Ashland’s Philipp Sikatzki finished second in 47.23, while Drury’s Stanislav Kuzmin earned third overall in 47.57. Florida Southern’s Edson Lima picked up fourth overall in 47.91, while Wayne State’s Soren Holm also cleared 48 seconds with a fifth-place time of 47.95.

Saint Leo’s Matheus Assis (48.03), Florida Southern’s Allan Gutierrez (48.19) and Delta State’s Vlad Zinca (48.32) rounded out the rest of the top eight. Drury also picked up another point scorer with Fred Karue qualifying 16th in 49.36.

Women’s 200 free
Wingate’s Kathryn Pheil provided her team another potential NCAA D2 titlist with a 1:48.69 in prelims. She’ll have to battle 200 IM winner Katharina Fischer of West Chester in the finale as Fischer picked up the second seed with a 1:49.06.

UC San Diego’s Anjali Shakya (1:49.22) and Wingate’s Sofia Petrenko (1:49.29) are also within striking distance of making this finale one of the more wide open finishes of the night.

Queens’ Lillian Gordy (1:49.43), Drury’s Sarah Pullen (1:49.83), Drury’s Tinsley Andrews (1:50.04) and Florida Southern’s Allison Crenshaw (1:50.36) qualified fifth through eighth.

In the team fight between Drury and Wayne State, Drury made a huge move in this event with two in the A final and one in the B final (Leah Reed, 13th, 1:51.38), while Wayne State didn’t qualified anyone into finals.

Men’s 200 free
Drury’s Albert Lloyd popped a 1:36.98 to lead the way this morning in the 200 free, while Wingate’s Leif-Henning Kluever could provide Wingate with another NCAA titlist on night two after qualifying second in 1:37.00. Lloyd was a bit of a surprise top seed, having come out of the third heat of prelims in lane 1.

Grand Valley’s Gianni Ferrero touched third overall in 1:37.22, while Queens’ Ben Taylor (1:37.36), Wayne State’s Till Barthel (1:37.49) and Florida Southern’s Luis Rojas (1:37.52) finished third through sixth in the preliminary heats.

West Chester’s Victor Polyakov, the 1000 free victor from last night, demonstrated his range with a seventh-place time of 1:37.62, while Wayne State’s Kristian Larsen earned the final spot in the championship heat with a 1:37.71.

Women’s 400 medley relay
Drury’s Yakaterina Rudenko (53.49), Agnieszka Ostrowska (1:01.71), Wai Ting Yu (54.95) and Sarah Pullen (51.73) led the way in prelims by more than a second with a 3:41.88, and have a chance to take a run at Wayne State’s NCAA D2 record of 3:40.45 from 2011. Drury also should pile up some more points in the team race, considering Wayne State’s Ellyson Maeski, Kayla Scott, Kristina Novichenko and Kei Prentis took fifth in 3:45.10.

Cal Baptist’s Mary Hanson, Alena Rumiantceva, Kyndal Terwilliger and Patricia Hapsari wound up second in 3:42.99, while Grand Valley’s Meghan Falconer, Danielle Vallier, Caitlyn Madsen and Sarah Roeser placed third in prelims with a 3:44.50. Wingate’s Viktoriya Arkhipova, Jessika Weiss, Sofia Petrenko and Kathryn Pheil snared fourth in 3:44.68.

Queens (3:45.12), Alaska Fairbanks (3:45.18) and UC San Diego (3:45.72) collected the rest of the spots in the finale.

Men’s 400 medley relay
Drury and Queens set up a potential barn-burner with strong morning swims. Drury’s Jordi Joan Montseny Diez (47.88), Kacper Pelczynski (53.97), Stanislav Kuzmin (47.20) and Nicholas McCarthy (43.27) qualified first in 3:12.32, while Queens’ Zachary Phelps (49.52), Nicholas Eriksson (52.96), Matt Josa (45.85) and Harry Traystman (44.00) placed second with a time of 3:12.33 as the two teams will take a run at Grand Canyon’s D2 record of 3:11.93 from last year.

Wayne State’s Juan David Molina Perez (48.79), Piotr Jachowicz (52.93), Soren Holm (47.41) and Kristian Larsen (44.23) might make some noise after posting a 3:13.36, but the fans may wind up seeing a head-to-head battle in the center of the pool tonight.

Tampa (3:13.92), Bridgeport (3:14.41), Florida Southern (3:15.02), Delta State (3:15.57) and Grand Valley (3:16.09) qualified fourth through eighth to make the finale.

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