Emory & Henry - ODAC Championships @ Greensboro Aquatic Center - 2/15 - 2/17
The ODAC Championship is a big swim meet for a D3 conference with 12 women’s teams and 10 men’s teams competing. In the meet the top 16 places score with the points distributed like this:
Code:
1 – 20 points 9 – 9 points
2 – 17 points 10 – 7 points
3 – 16 points 11 – 6 points
4 – 15 points 12 – 5 points
5 – 14 points 13 – 4 points
6 – 13 points 14 – 3 points
7 – 12 points 15 – 2 points
8 – 11 points 16 – 1 point
Washington & Lee dominates the conference having won 11 straight women’s title and all 4 of the previous men’s titles. They will undoubtedly win again this year by a wide margin. E&H finished 4th on the women’s side last year and 10th on the men's side.
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The Emory & Henry College Men's & Women's Swimming Teams will enter the championship portion of their seasons this weekend at the 2019 Old Dominion Athletic Conference Championships, held at the Greensboro Aquatics Center. The three-day, 18-event meet will run from Friday to Sunday with preliminary races in the morning and finals in the evening. The Wasps will send eight men and seven women to this year's championship.
"The ODAC Championship meet is what we build our whole season around. Our biggest goal when we get into the pool in the fall is to prepare ourselves to swim fast this weekend," commented Head Coach Cody Skinner, now in his third year leading the Wasps. "We have had a good regular season. We swam some dual meets against really tough competition and some Division II and NAIA schools that have scholarships. Our record shows that we had success during the year, but the big measuring stick is the championship meet at the end of the year. We are excited for the possibility of one of our swimmers to attain a NCAA "B" Cut which will get her into the conversation for the NCAA Championship meet in March."
Women
- Junior Olivia Anson (Apex, N.C.) has the second-best swim over the course of the year in the 200-yard freestyle and is also seeded fifth in both the 50-yard and 100-yard freestyles.
- Freshman Cat Sweigart (Bridgewater, Va.) is sixth in the 100-yard breaststroke and ninth in the 200-yard breaststroke while freshman Leah Mumpower (Bristol, Va.) is seeded eighth 500-yard freestyle.
- E&H has the fifth-best time in the 200-yard freestyle relay and is sixth in the 400-yard freestyle, 200-yard medley and 400-yard medley relays.
Men
- Freshman Braxton Justice (Spanishburg, W.Va.) is seeded 10th in the 100-yard breaststroke and also has strong seeds in the 50-yard and 100-yard freestyle.
- Freshman Mack Henningsen (Abingdon, Va.) and freshman Blake Madaris (Acworth, Ga.) hold the #11 seeds in the 200-yard freestyle and 400-yard individual medley, respectively.
- The Wasps' have their best relay seed in the 800-freestyle relay at fifth and are sixth in the 400-yard medley relay.
Women’s Individual Event Breakdown
50 Freestyle
- 5) Anson – 24.82 – less than a half second from first.
- 41) Trotter – 31.28 – also ran
100 Freestyle
- 5) Anson – 54:06 – another ‘A’ final swim for Anson
- 16) Tunstall – 57:07 – sitting in a pretty good spot to at least hold on to the final scoring position
- 38) Trotter – 1:12.86 – also ran
200 Freestyle
- 2) Anson – 1:55.40 – just over a second ahead of third and just under a second behind first…
- 22) Simmons – 2:16.39 – Simmons has improved a good deal on mid-distance swims recently, but too far to go to get points this weekend.
500 Freestyle
- 25) Mumpower – 6:15.23 – also ran
1650 Freestyle
- No Entry
100 Backstroke
- 25) Simmons – 1:12.73 – also ran
- 32) Trotter – 1:22.42 – also ran
200 Backstroke
- 27) Simmons – NT – personal best puts her just outside of the top 16, it’s not likely she gets into scoring range but it’s not entirely out of the question either.
100 Butterfly
- 12) Tunstall – 1:03.37 – seventh place is less than 1 second faster than her seed time. 1 second slower is still 15th, so she should score in this one.
200 Butterfly
- 19) Scarbrough – NT – her personal best time of 2:34 puts her in the top 16, and based on enry times if she can even come close to that, she should make the ‘B’ finals
100 Breaststroke
- 6) Sweigart – 1:09.50 – sixth through eighth is less than .12 seconds apart. Needs a good swim to ensure an ‘A’ final appearance.
- 13) Scarbrough – 1:11.99 – she has a 3+ second advantage over the 14 seed and only .2 from 11, making it very likely she scores here
- 20) Mumpower – 1:19.47 – would need a really strong swim to slip into the back end of the scoring range
200 Breaststroke
- 9) Sweigart – 2:35.83 – needs over a second improvement to move up into the top 8
- 28) Mumpower – NT – personal best time is outside of scoring range
200 IM
- 12) Tunstall – 2:19.93 – looks likely she finishes between 11 and 14, big gaps on either side of those spots
- 23) Sweigart – 2:29.81 – would need a huge time drop to reach 16
400 IM
- 11) Scarbrough – 5:04.51 – solidly in the middle of the scoring pack.
Women’s Relay Event Breakdown - with relays Cody will be facing some tough decisions. By my count a swimmer can compete in a maximum of 4 relays, and Cody doesn’t have enough good swimmers to spread the wealth across all 5 races (this goes for the men too). He’s almost certainly going to have to analyze the races and look for gaps where a weaker swimmer might not hurt the team as much. The projected teams listed below take into account the need to limit swimmers to 4 events and is my best guess as to what Cody will do.
200 Free Relay
- 5) – 1:45.86 – Anson, Simmons, Sweigart, Scarbrough
400 Free Relay
- 6) – 3:56.53 – Anson, Tunstall, Simmons, Scarbrough
800 Free Relay
- 8) – NT – Anson, Tunstall, Simmons, Scarbrough – calculating all 4 swimmers 200 free times without adjusting for rolling starts – this team’s time comes in sixth
200 Medley Relay
- 6) – 2:01.14 – Simmons (bk), Sweigart (br), Tunstall (fl), Anson (fr)
400 Medley Relay
- 6) – 4:18.86 – Scarbrough (bk), Sweigart (br), Tunstall (fl), Simmons (fr)
Overall
The E&H Women are projected to finish 5th
Men’s Individual Event Breakdown
50 Freestyle
- 17) Justice – 23.11 – has a shot to score in this event, especially if he responds well to the taper
- 21) Gardner – 23.48 – has looked good at times and rough in others, not sure which we will see this weekend
- 29) Barr – 24.74 – a good time for a rugby player who swims in his spare time.
- 38) Moore – 26.75 – also ran
- 41) Bracero – 29.43 – nothing else to put him in
100 Freestyle
- 17) Justice – 51.45 – just like the 50 free, if the taper is good he could score
- 28) Gardner – 54.64 – doesn’t have the stamina to challenge the top 16 in this event
- 35) Barr – 57.73 – also ran
- 42) Moore – 1:08.16 – I expect he’ll be faster than this time, but still a non-factor
200 Freestyle
- 17) Henningsen – 1:55.59 – taper could help as the 13th through the 17th spots are separated by just 2 seconds
- 28) Barr – 2:11.96 – nothing else for him to swim, but he’ll be a non-factor
500 Freestyle
- 20) Henningsen – 5:22.13 – it appears he’s too far out to reach the top 16, but it is the 500 and we’ve seen significant time drops in this event during tapers before
1650 Freestyle
- No Entry
100 Backstroke
- 23) Madaris – 1:01.41 – not going to challenge for points here, as he’d need to get down to ~58 seconds
200 Backstroke
- 18) Madaris – 2:13.73 – here Blake may be able to slip into the back end of the scorers, he’s just 1 second off from the 16th seed.
100 Butterfly
- 21) Gardner – 1:03.40 – like the 100 free, he lacks the stamina to really challenge in this event
- 25) Moore – 1:11.53 – also ran
200 Butterfly
- 11) Henningsen – 2:15.65 – barring a DQ, Mack will almost certainly score here
100 Breaststroke
- 10) Justice – 1:05.28 – again barring a DQ, Braxton should score
- 17) Breeze – 1:08.75 – he’s really probably 18th, as there is a no time (NT) swimmer entered who has a personal best around a 1:04 but still that is right on the cusp of scoring. He’s going to need to drop some time to ensure he earns points.
200 Breaststroke
- 13) Breeze – 2:31.48 – this one is going to be close as there are several NT swimmers with PB times very similar or faster than Brett’s. A good swim here and he could climb up to around 10
200 IM
- No Entry
400 IM
- 11) Madaris – 4:59.81 – this one is going to be tricky because there are 7 NT swimmers, most of them are very good in this event, a couple fast enough to make the ‘A’ final. Just not sure how well a 5 minute swim holds up here.
- 18) Breeze – NT – Brett’s PB is a 5:02, but the strange thing is, I have no idea what to expect in this event. My first instinct is to state that he’s in no where near as good a shape as he was when he posted that PB time, but on the other hand he was swimming around a 1:15 fly leg, where he’s now swimming under 1:05…so that’s a 10 second improvement at the beginning of the race. If I was forced to guess, I say around a 5 minute time would be a good effort from Brett, which of course puts him in the same boat with Madaris mentioned above.
Men’s Relay Event Breakdown
200 Free Relay
- 7) – 1:36.50 – Gardner, Justice, Barr, Breeze
400 Free Relay
- 7) - 3:35.55 – Gardner, Justice, Barr, Henningsen
800 Free Relay
- 5) - 8:04.28 – Madaris, Justice, Henningsen, Breeze
200 Medley Relay
- 7) – 1:54.16 – Madaris (bk), Breeze (br), Henningsen (fl), Gardner (fr)
400 Medley Relay
- 6) 4:01.61 – Madaris (bk), Justice (br), Henningsen (fl), Gardner (fr)
Overall
The men are projected to finish 7th
*Note: The number preceding the swimmer's name is where they are seeded in the event.