GETTYSBURG, Pa.—The cheers started quarter to seven. The men had already broken two school records after the first event of the evening. Andrew Steele led off the 200-yard freestyle relay in a new school record of 21.02 in the 50-yard freestyle besting the old record set by Doug Gilchrist-Scott in 2009. A mere 1:03.17 after Steele's record, the relay team of Steele, Jeffrey Tse, David Ranshous, and Charles Yang had raced themselves to a new school record of 1:24.18 to finish second behind defending champion, Gettysburg. Swarthmore's team of Stephen Sekula, Henry Wilson, Chris Smith, and Alejandro Hernandez finished in 1:27.29 to claim 11th place for the Garnet.
The trio of Sekula (4:43.69), Michael Lutzker (4:42.44), and Smith (4:43.69) followed the men's record-breaking relay performances with near record-breaking performances of their own in the 500-yard freestyle to finish in sixth, ninth, and 10th respectively. All three swam best times during the day (Sekula's morning swim slightly bested his evening swim). In the preliminary heats on Friday morning, Joshua Turek-Herman (4:55.07) and Jason Fu (4:55.97) turned in season-best times to finish 19th and 21st. Kyle Campbell (4:52.36) and Kurtis Swartz (4:59.26) both recorded personal records in a time trial 500 race.
In a tight race with several lead changes in the 200-yard IM, Liam Fitzstevens (1:54.15) finished in second place with a season-best time, just four-tenths of a second ahead of third place. CJ Cling finished in 16th with a time of 2:00.63. Cling set his season-best in the morning session with a 1:59.10. In the preliminaries, Ben Hsiung (2:01.94), Tony Wang (2:04.18), and Jerry Gu (2:04.83) all added personal record swims.
In the final individual event of the day, Steele led the way for the Garnet with a fourth-place finish in a time of 21.11, just off his program record from earlier in the evening. Hernandez (21.69) and Yang (21.73) added 11th- and 12th-place finishes, both dropping considerable time from their morning swims and life-time bests. In the preliminaries, Wilson (22.16) tallied a personal record time to finish 20th, just ahead of Ranshous (22.19) in 21st.
The Garnet ended the evening on a high note as the 400-yard medley relay team of Fitzstevens, Hernandez, Tse, and Steele won the conference championship in a new program record time of 3:24.61.
Swarthmore currently sits in third place with 169 points. The Garnet return to action on Saturday morning at 10 a.m. at Bullets Pool.
