Results
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2014 TYR Invitational Norris Aquatics Center Evanston, Ill. NU's Place: 2nd/5 Day One Results |
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EVANSTON, Ill. -- Northwestern got one NCAA `B' cut during the opening day Friday of its three-day home TYR Invitational and currently ranks second among the five-team field at the Norris Aquatics Center.
Thanks in large part to having 10 of the 16 scorers in the 200 IM Friday, Michigan State leads the meet over Northwestern in second. Saint Louis is third, UIC is fourth and Truman State is fifth.
The Wildcats got season-bests from nearly every swimmer they fielded despite not resting at all for this meet; NU is sending 11 to the U.S. Nationals Dec. 3-6 and will use that meet as its fall-season-ending yardstick.
Day Two of the 2014 TYR Invitational begins with a 9 a.m. preliminary session tomorrow, Saturday, Nov. 22, with the finals sessions starting at 5 p.m. Sunday's last day of competition has prelims at 9 a.m. and finals at 3 p.m.
Friday's Preliminary Session
A senior and a freshman, one a breaststroke specialist and the other not, got the Wildcats started well Friday morning in the 50 breast preliminary heats. Senior Uula Auren (Helsinki, Finland/Mäkelänrinteen Lukio), Northwestern's top 100 breaststroker this year and every year he's been with the squad, qualified second overall for the evening finals in the abbreviated stroke event with a 25.55. Following closely behind was freshman Almog Olshtein (Haifa, Israel/Haifa), NU's best sprint freestylist in his first season, in a third-place time of 25.79.
Two more Wildcats advanced to the scoring `B' final in the 50 breast. Senior Aaron Sears (Neenah, Minn./Neenah) moved on in a 10th-place time of 26.85 and junior Van Donkersgoed (Eden Prairie, Minn./Minnehaha Academy) earned the right to score points with an 11th-place 26.96. Senior free/fly specialist William Rosler (Bexley, Ohio/Columbus Academy) made the `C' final with an 18th-place 27.74.
Junior Jordan Wilimovsky (Malibu, Calif./Malibu) eased into the 500 free championship final with a second-place 4:28.74 in the morning to lead a trio of Wildcats in that heat. Jonathan Lieberman (Eden Prairie, Minn./Eden Prairie) in sixth (4:34.33) and Charlie Cole (Bernardsville, N.J./Bernards) in eighth (4:35.37) also made the `A' final.
Freshman Jonathan Blansfield (Westport, Conn./Staples) was the only other Wildcat to earn a second swim in the 500 free with a 24th-place 4:44.16 in his preliminary heat.
Three more Wildcats made the championship final of the 200 IM Friday morning, this time with sophomore Andy Jovanovic (Chicago, Ill./Loyola Academy) leading the way in a third-place time of 1:51.54 that was over four seconds faster than his previous season-best. Junior Grant Halsall (Laxey, Isle of Man, GBR) and freshman Alex Snarski (Libertyville, Ill./Libertyville) snuck into the `A' heat with seventh- and eighth-place finishes, respectively, in season-best low 1:53 times.
Five Wildcats earned the right to swim again in the 200 IM `C' final: Donkersgoed, senior Andrew Seitz (Pleasanton, Calif./Amador Valley), freshman Nick Petersen (Thiensville, Wis./Homestead), Lieberman and Wilimovsky.
Olshtein returned to his sprint free roots to win the preliminary heats of the 50 free Friday morning by the relatively comfortable cushion of two-tenths of a second via a time of 20.65. Though he was the lone Wildcat to make the `A' final, four more will score points Friday night in the `B' heat. Freshman Gage Kohner (Boca Raton, Fla./Boca Raton Community) led that group with a 10th-place 21.20 followed by Jovanovic in 11th at 21.24 and Joao Steiner (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil/The Bolles School) and Jack Morris (Lansdale, Pa./North Penn) tied for 15th at 21.42. All of those times for the Wildcats in the `B' final were season-best efforts.
Auren, Snarski and Petersen made the `C' final of the 50 free for NU while Ferguson dead-heated for the first alternate spot at 21.72.
During morning diving prelims, sophomore Andrew Cramer (Indianapolis, Ind./Cathedral) qualified first overall on the 1-meter springboard as the only entrant to crack the 300 point barrier, tallying a score of 307.00. His teammates Reed Dillon (Indianapolis, Ind./Lawrence Central) and John Andrade (Avon, Conn./Notre Dame) qualified fourth and fifth overall, respectively.
Friday's Finals Session
Northwestern opened the evening's action with a solid win in the 200 free relay. Olshtein grabbed a narrow lead over UIC's relay in the opening leg with a 20.52 50 free split, then Saint Louis came from fourth place to nearly even the NU lead at the midway point following Kohner's leg. Jovanovic added a tenth of a second to the Wildcats' cushion before the sophomore Steiner swam the fastest anchor leg in the pool to bring it home for Northwestern in a winning 1:21.97, half a second ahead of SLU.
In the 50 breast, Auren and Olshtein reprised their roles from the morning heats and took second and third overall in the championship final. Auren dropped six one-hundredths to swim a 25.49 and place second while Olshtein cut 13 one-hundredths for a third-place 25.66.
Sears and Donkersgoed, however, were unable to replicate their morning times and finished 13th and 14th overall, respectively, after the consolation final. In the bonus final, Rosler dropped .64 of a second and placed second in the heat and 18th overall for the Wildcats.
Wilimovsky kept the 500 free championship final close for the first 150 yards before steadily pulling away for an NCAA `B' provisional qualifying time and season-best effort of 4:21.70, giving himself a 6.02 second margin of victory. Cole cut over five seconds from his seed time to jump from eighth to fifth overall with a 4:30.22 while Lieberman remained in sixth place with a 4:33.71 in the final.
In the 500 free bonus final, Blansfield went from last to first, winning the heat in 4:38.54 after qualifying for the 24th and final second swim in the event. His nearly 5.5 second drop in time gave him a 17th place overall finish.
In a 200 IM championship final featuring five Michigan State swimmers and three from Northwestern, Jovanovic was the Wildcats' top finisher with a fourth-place 1:52.27. Halsall placed sixth in 1:52.69 and Snarski was seventh with a 1:53.86.
Donkersgoed (20th), Wilimovsky (21st), Seitz (22nd), Petersen (23rd) and Lieberman (DQ) all competed in the bonus final of the 200 IM for the Wildcats.
Olshtein, who earlier in the session swam a season-best 20.52 leadoff leg in the 200 free relay, bested that mark with a 20.45 in the 50 free championship final to win the event for Northwestern. A quartet of Wildcats swam the consolation final with Kohner leading the way in an 11th-place 21.08. Steiner followed in a 12th-place and career-best 21.11 to continue a strong TYR Invitational for him. Morris finished 13th and Jovanovic 16th for NU.
In the 1-meter springboard final, Cramer did not crack 300 points again but he did register a 295.65 that was good enough for first-place points. Dillon took fourth overall with 268.35, a nearly identical total to his morning go-around, and Andrade finished sixth with 256.80.
In the 400 medley relay to conclude Friday's action, Northwestern's team of Snarski, Auren, Jovanovic and Olshtein swam a season-best 3:17.75 to place second overall.
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