X

Grasberger and men's 400 freestyle relay set new standards for CU swimmers at UNYSCSA

Posted 2/19/17

Ithaca, NY – Two more records fell for the Clarkson University Swimming and Diving team on Saturday as the Golden Knights finished off their annual trek to the UNYSCSA Championships, held at the …

This item is available in full to subscribers.

Please log in to continue

Log in

Grasberger and men's 400 freestyle relay set new standards for CU swimmers at UNYSCSA

Posted

Ithaca, NY – Two more records fell for the Clarkson University Swimming and Diving team on Saturday as the Golden Knights finished off their annual trek to the UNYSCSA Championships, held at the Athletics & Events Center Aquatics Pavilion on the campus of Ithaca College.

The Golden Knights' men finished off the UNYSCSA Championships in eight place out of 14 teams with 465 points, while the women took 12th place out of 15 squads with 240 points.

Sophomore Lauren Grasberger took a little more than a second off the program's 200 backstroke record and claimed a spot in the 'B' finals with a time of 2:12.07, almost six seconds faster than her seed time for the event. Later, she took another .14 seconds of the mark with a time of 2:11.93, coming in 13th once again in the finals. Sarah Halstead just missed out on the finals as well, taking 27th in 2:18.54 and Tiffany Catano came in 31st in 2:20.52.

Clarkson also saw Kayla Weckesser earn a spot in the 'C' finals in the 200 breaststroke by taking 23rd in the prelims in 2:38.58, but she moved up a spot in the finals and finished 22nd overall, shaving three more seconds off her time from earlier in the day (2:35.21).

The Knights didn't have any swimmers reach the finals in the women's 100 freestyle, though Sarah Mykins (47th – 59.85), Katherine Blanchard (50th – 1:01.56), Joanne Bechaz (52nd – 1:02.92), Samantha Denning (53rd – 1:02.97), Billie Hens (54th – 1:03.12), Laura Dowdy (55th – 1:03.43) and Kendal Lazarus (57th – 1:04.10) each competed in the preliminaries.

On the men's side, the 100 freestyle saw three swimmers compete in the finals on Saturday evening. Gavin Lopata took ninth in the prelims but fell slightly to 12th in the finals with a time of 47.75 seconds and freshman Benjamin Thibert moved up one spot from his preliminary position to take 14th in the finals in 48.05 seconds. Chris Bay competed in the 'C' finals and earned six points for taking 19th in 48.38 seconds. Others that competed for Clarkson in the 100 freestyle were Andrew Woythal (38th – 50.78), Mike Palozzi (56th – 53.58), Harrison Cline (57th – 53.59), Kevin Atkinson (59th – 54.09), and Bakari Smith (62nd – 1:01.34).

The 200 backstroke had three Clarkson competitors, with freshman Jacob Baker making the finals after coming in 10th in the prelims. He fell one spot in the finals to 11th, finishing with a time of 1:57.69. Kyle Atkinson (32nd – 2:15.89) and Michael Sarkisian (33rd – 2:17.41) fell short of the finals.

Three swimmers reached the finals for the Knights in the 200 breaststroke, and they all raced against one another in the 'C' finals. Garry Dorn was 17th in the prelims, taking more than nine seconds off his seed time that saw him initially placed 38th, while Benjamin Vondrak was 19th in 2:14.25 and Connor Maloney took 24th in 2:16.08 in the qualifying heats. The placement shuffled slightly in the finals on Saturday night, with Vondrak moving up to 18th in 2:13.57, Dorn falling to 21st in 2:14.74, and Maloney climbing one spot to 23rd with a time of 2:15.44. Nathan Perrotta (40th – 2:27.26) also swam in the event for Clarkson.

Starting the eighth session for the men was the 1650 freestyle where sophomore Conrad Koehler came up two spots short of scoring in the event, finishing 26th in 18:27.45. Additionally, in the 3-meter dive, Brent Reid took ninth place with 347.90 points and Austin Bentley placed 17th with 247.60 points.

Clarkson closed out the championships with solid runs in the 400 freestyle relay. The Golden Knights' 'A' women's relay earned points for 13th with a time of 3:48.24 thanks to the team of Sarah Halstead, Tiffany Catano, Brooke Atkinson and Lauren Grasberger. More impressively, Clarkson's men's 400 free relay team of Gavin Lopata, Jacob Baker, Benjamin Thibert and Chris Bay twice broke the school record for the event. In the prelims they recorded a time of 3:12.42, a little over a second better than the time posted in 2014. However, that mark lasted only a handful of hours as the same foursome dropped the time down to 3:11.35 Saturday night, finishing fifth to collect 50 points.