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SAA Conference Championships - Day 5 Finals
Bear
1650 Freestyle (10:16.85) : Seeded 5th - The 1650, like Bear's other events was also loaded. Snyder, Valdez, Fountain, and Swing all competing. Because the conference wasn't sure everyone had enough opportunity to swim the 1650 during the season, the 1000 times were used for seeding. Bear came into this one with a lot of excitement. He really felt he had a chance to improve on his personal best time and maybe even challenge an NCAA B cut. The race started and Bear looked really good. Long smooth strokes and good splits, staying under 30 seconds for each 50. With the opening 55.57, plus sub 30 splits, he was well under 60 second 100s early. At the 500 split he was a 4:55.13. Unfortunately, at the 550 he started slipping just above a 30 second split. At the 1000 he was a 9:59.22, which was a season best time for that event, and a top 5 time for him with another 650 yards to swim. He was able to hold off falling above the 60/100 threshold for another 150 yards, but at the 1200 he was 12:01, and it was obvious his shoulders were bothering him. His stroke shortened up and became more labored. He continue to turn around 31 low splits, but slowly bled time back. In the last 100, he gutted out a split of 58.67 and finished in a time of 16:38.10, less than 1 second off of his personal best. He finished 5th, almost a full minute ahead of 6th place.
Other Items of Interest
1650 Free
- Ross Valdez finished 2nd
200 Back
- Billy Blood finished 6th
- Breck Richards finished 8th
- Riley Croker stayed 12th
100 Free
- Harrison McNeil climbed to 6th
- Alex Bartik finished 13th
- Paxton Smathers dropped 1 spot to 15th
200 Breast
- Ryan McKinnon posts 4th
- Tyler Stephenson held on to 7th
- Andrew Horn finished 8th
200 Fly
- Ethan Whiting slipped to 4th
- Hunter Kenny fantastic swim climbs up to 3rd and wins the bronze medal
400 Yard Free Relay
B Relay - this ended up being a Senior sendoff relay, as the coach shuffled Riley and Tyler into the lineup. Billy (49.25 cold start), Tyler (49.53), Riley (49.72), and Paxton (47.90) - combined to finish 4th in the heat.
A Relay - Hunter (47.57 cold start), Harrison (47.03), Sam (46.30), and Ross (46.53) managed to take the silver medal beating BSC by around a half a second.
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