Eagles throttle Tornado in final dual meet of the season
BRISTOL, Tenn. - Moving to 5-0 all-time in dual meets against the King Tornado, Carson-Newman swimming took the victory in every single event on Friday night from Tennessee High School in the program’s final tune up prior to the Bluegrass Mountain Championships.
BRISTOL, Tenn. - Moving to 5-0 all-time in dual meets against the King Tornado, Carson-Newman swimming took the victory in every single event on Friday night from Tennessee High School in the program's final tune up prior to the Bluegrass Mountain Championships.
A combined score of 360 to 97 came through the men's victory of 208-66 alongside the women's point total of 152-31. The C-N men currently hold the No. 7 ranking in the nation with the women checking in at No. 14.
" There were a lot of really good races across the board," Coach Jordan Taylor said. "We wanted to come in sharper this week than we were last week and we blew all of those times out of the war. We are two weeks out from conference championships and they did everything we asked of them and they were determined to be better tonight."
Matthew George and Meredith Ginn continued to have stellar freshman seasons with the Manchester, England native George grabbing two victories in the 200-yard freestyle (1:41.67) and 100-yard butterfly (51.49). Ginn, a native of Ocala, Fla. collected an individual event win in the 100-yard breaststroke with a time of 1:07.55.
Another freshman in Ruth Hullete earned two individual event wins on the night as well with the Newton, N.C. product taking the top spot in the 200-yard individual medley (2:11.36) and the 100-yard backstroke (59.00). The 200 IM time is over five seconds better than her previous season-best swim.
Senior Lisa Postma earned an individual event win in the 100-yard freestyle (53.18) to go along with two top finishes in relay events, the 200 medley relay and the 200 freestyle relay.
Senior teammate Elly Culp joins the same boat after winning the 100-yard butterfly (57.43) to go along with being a member of the 200 medley and 200 freestyle relay teams.
Andrei Roman grabbed an individual event win in the 100-yard breaststroke knocking off nearly two seconds for a season-low time of 56.94. The Romania native was a member in the 200-yard medley relay who took the victory in event two of the night.
Mary Northcutt (Huntsville, Ala.) joins the long list of Eagles who collected wins in a relay and individual event on the night. The junior swimmer earned first in the 50-yard freestyle with a new season-best time at 24.43 seconds. She was also the second leg of the foursome in the 200 freestyle relay along with Postma, Ksenia Naydenova, and Culp who took first with a new season-best time of 1:37.78.
Junior Caleb Howell earned his 11th individual event win of the year when he took the top spot in the 200-yard individual medley with a time of 1:51.47 which sits fourth all-time in school history.
"We need to stay with it and stay focused," Taylor said. "Our athletes need to believe in themselves and tonight it showed that we did and it showed everyone that they have been putting in the hard work and it's paying off. We'll rest up this weekend and continue to stay the course and trust the process and not overthink it. It's an exciting time coming up in a couple of weeks."
The BMC Championships are set to take place over a four-day stretch in Charlotte, N.C. from Feb. 6-9.
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