WMVO Good Times Great Oldies
GAMBIER, Ohio — Looking to put the finishing touches on a win at the Total Performance Swim Camps Invitational, the Kenyon College men’s swimming and diving team won four of seven events on the third and final day of the meet. The Owls finished with a three-day total of 1930.5 points, securing the top spot in the eight-team field.
West Chester University, who started the day in third, helped its case for second place by winning the first event of the evening, the 1,650-yard freestyle, but the NCAA Division II institution remained in bronze-medal position behind DIII Carnegie Mellon University. CMU compiled 1573.5 points over three days, while WCU tallied 1456.5.
Kenyon racked up points from the start with two top-five finishes in the one-mile opener. First-year Roman Savage was the runner-up with a time of 15:39.75, while senior Max Nonnenmacher placed fourth at 15:43.03. Both results fell under the NCAA ‘B’ cut time of 15:50.88.
After a record-setting showing in Friday’s 100-yard backstroke, Yurii Kosian raced to another record in Saturday’s 200-yard iteration. The senior swam the race in 1:43.59, setting the standard for the TPSC meet and the Steen Aquatic Center while clearing the 1:49.15 ‘B’ cut threshold. Kosian’s time surpassed the 1:43.73 time put up by the University of Pennsylvania’s Grant Proctor in 2016.
The Owls made it back-to-back wins when Kenyon swimmers went 1-2-3 in the 100-yard freestyle. Aleksa Dobric, a senior, led the way with a time of 43.99, the best NCAA DIII showing this season. Sophomore Djordje Dragojlovic followed suit and clocked in at 44.45, and senior Daniel Brooks was close behind at 44.50. All three times were better than the 45.11 ‘B’ cut cutoff. Brooks and Dobric had gone 1-2 in the prelims, while Dragojlovic did his work in lane nine and improved seven slots from his morning showing.
Carnegie Mellon disrupted Kenyon’s winning ways by claiming the top two spots in the 200-yard backstroke. Both CMU swimmers jumped Noel Tumbasz, who finished first in the prelims at 2:01.71 before shaving a few ticks off the clock at 2:01.40 in the finals, getting under the 2:01.59 ‘B’ cut threshold and placing third.
Case Western Reserve University and Carnegie swimmers topped the final individual event, the 200-yard butterfly, but a trio of Owls went 3-4-5, with all three coming in under the 1:50.26 ‘B’ cut mark. Seniors Marko Krtinic (1:47.71) and Noah Hargrove (1:49.14) finished third and fourth, respectively, while sophomore Ethan Manske (1:49.59) was fifth.
The 400-yard freestyle relay capped off the Invitational, and the Owls capped off the evening and the meet with another victory. The Kenyon quartet of Krtinic, Dobric, Dragojlovic, and Brooks posted a time of 2:56.09, which was more than four seconds faster than the runner-up. Additionally, the mark is the best DIII time of the season and cleared the ‘B’ cut time of 3:01.91.
Just like day two, the Owls got a boost to their end-of-evening scores with the addition of diving results from earlier in the day. Kenyon’s Israel Zavaleta won the one-meter event after claiming yesterday’s three-meter crown, topping the three-diver field. The Owls senior was awarded 596.40 points, clearing second place by 185.25 points. The score surpasses Zavaleta’s own pool record of 564.60 set in 2021, and it goes down as a meet record after clearing the 531.35 total that Carnegie Mellon’s Gabe Bamforth tallied in 2016.
After competing for three straight days, Kenyon has nearly two months until its next contest. The Owls are scheduled to welcome Oberlin College fo Gambier for a North Coast Athletic Conference dual on Friday, January 12, at noon.
