Day 3 was one to remember for the Louisville men. They swept the top four spots in not one, but two races on the night, breaking all sorts of pool records, including a 1:32.29 in the 200 free from a not-fully-rested Joao de Lucca.
The women were once again led by Tanja Kylliainen, who won her second IM event of the meet. A whole mess of teams got in on the championship action, with Louisville, SMU, Cincinnati and Rutgers all winning events on the women’s side.
Women’s 400 IM
After crushing the pool record in prelims, Tanja Kylliainen lowered it even further at finals, going 4:04.96 to win by 9 seconds. That’s an A cut for the junior, and also her second IM win of the meet. Probably most impressive for Kylliainen was her backstroke split of 1:01.4, easily tops in the field, although she’s better-known as a butterflyer.
Rutgers held onto the 2-seed as Morgan Pfaff found another two seconds to go 4:13.85. Pfaff and Kylliainen checked out on the field very early, holding two second leads by the end of the butterfly.
Louisville also got third, with Abby Chin going 4:16.48. SMU freshman Kirsty McLauchlan closed out the lead pack of swimmers in 4:17.31, the last B-cut of the field.
UConn went 1-2 in the B heat, with junior Katy Munzenmaier winning in 4:22.03. That was actually the fifth-fastest time of the whole event.
Men’s 400 IM
Louisville had the top seed with 200 IM champ Nolan Tesone, but Connecticut made a huge finals showing in the event, with junior Sawyer Franz dropping 12 seconds from prelims to finals to go 3:47.88 for the win. The top spot on the podium took a gigantic freestyle comeback – Sawyer trailed by a second and a half after breaststroke, but dropped a 52.7 freestyle split to run down Tesone for the win.
Tesone took second in 3:48.39, and after a sizable gap, his freshman teammate Jake Schultz was third in 3:54.53.
Cincinnati’s Cody Green went 3:56.91 for fourth, and in one of the longest races of the meet, a rare tie happened in fifth. Michael Lennon of UConn and Bryan Draganosky out of Louisville both went 3:57.54. That was thanks to a big comeback by Lennon over the final 100 yards.
Cincinnati grabbed the final two spots in the heat with Joe Bott and Joey Ferreri, who appeared to merely cruise the finals race to a 4:08.07.
Women’s 100 Fly
Two A cuts, two sub-52 butterflys and the two fastest times ever swum in the Louisville pool highlighted the women’s 100 fly. Two youngsters, SMU freshman Marne Erasmus and Louisville sophomore Kelsi Worrell went head-to-head the entire way, with Erasmus charging away over the final 25 to grab the narrowest victory of the night, 51.73 to 51.76. The win meant Erasmus gets to keep the pool record she set this morning.
Those two checked out from the get-go, but Louisville’s Devon Bibault bridged the gap between them and the rest of the field. She went 53.88 for third place.
Rutgers picked up 4th with senior Brittany Guinee, and SMU’s other A-finalist Monika Babok was fifth.
Men’s 100 Fly
At the time, 100 fly was the high-water mark for Louisville’s dominance so far this weekend (though another event later would challenge that status). The Cards went 1-2-3-4 in the event after doing the same this morning while breaking a pool record.
Pedro Coutinho moved up from the second seed to win in 47.04, just off what he went this morning. Freshman Josh Quallen was second in 47.18, top-seed and still-pool-record-holder Aaron Young third with a 47.19, and freshman David Boland just touched out Ziga Cerknovik of SMU for fourth place to clean up the top-4 sweep.
Cerknovik started off an SMU sweep of the next three spots, with Tyler Rauth and Tucker Wells following before Louisville’s fifth swimmer, Juan Lopez took 8th.
The Cardinals also took the B final with Aaron Greene‘s 48.47.
Women’s 200 Free
Just as we saw in the 500 free, Cincinnati’s Jackie Keire and Nina Rangelova of SMU chose not to reveal much of their hands in the preliminaries, opting to drop huge amounts of time at finals. The two engaged in another tooth-and-nail battle for the 200 free, with Keire once again coming out on top. She rode a huge final 50 to a 1:44.73 time that stands as a new pool record. Rangelova went 1:44.00 for second.
The battle for third was equally entertaining. SMU’s Ursa Bezan went out fast but Louisville freshman Andrea Kneppers came home with force, passing up Bezan to go 1:47.63 for third. Bezan was just behind in 1:47.87.
Breann McDowell of Louisville topped Houston’s Heather Winn for fifth, and Cincinnati took 7th with Weronika Wasiakowska, who won her own tight battle with Louisville’s Abbie Houck.
Men’s 200 Free
After a very smooth prelims, defending NCAA champ Joao de Lucca rolled to a 1:32.29 pool-record-setting win in the men’s event. He was out in 44.5, well ahead of the field at the 100 mark, and came home in 47.7. De Lucca also led a 1-2-3 Louisville sweep as the Cardinals continued to add to their huge points lead.
Matthias Lindenbauer was second in 1:35.92 and Trevor Carroll third in 1:35.95. Both men are still freshmen, inspiring plenty of hope for the continuation of Louisville’s dominance in the event after de Lucca graduates this spring.
Matt Roney took fourth for SMU in 1:37.28, and UConn’s Christopher Girg and Cincinnati’s Joe Scherpenberg joined him as the last two under 1:40.
Women’s 100 Breast
Andee Cottrell put the Louisville women back on top with a 100 breast win that turned out to be tighter than the prelims suggested it would be. Cottrell was about a half-second off her pool-record swim from this morning, going 59.88, and SMU’s Rachel Nicol cut about a half second herself to go 1:00.11. Those two, with SMU’s Tara-Lynn Nicholas, really separated themselves from the pack with great opening 50s.
Louisville’s Gisselle Kohoyda took fourth, touching out Greta Leberfinger of Rutgers, and Cincinnati’s Sammie Wheeler wasn’t far behind.
The B final was another great race. Cincinnati’s Helena Pikhartova went 1:02.91 to touch out Rachel Stoddard of Rutgers by .05.
Men’s 100 Breast
The battle of the Louisville breaststrokers went to junior Thomas Dahlia, who exploded for a 52.74 at the finals, topping his teammates by nearly a full second.
Dahlia broke the pool record held by teammate Kameron Chastain from this morning – Chastain dropped to third tonight, one one-hundredth behind fellow Cardinal Addison Bray. The two men were 53.67 and 53.68.
Nicolai Hansen of SMU took third in 54.34, just ahead of UConn’s Lachez Shumkov and Greg Baliko.
SMU rounded out the A final with their senior duo of Matthew Napier-Jameson and Julian Fletcher.
Women’s 100 Back
Just off the pool record this morning, Joanna Wu got under tonight, going 52.97 for the AAC title. The Rutgers sophomore dominated the field by nearly a full second; Isabella Arcila of SMU was 53.80 for second place.
Louisville swept third through sixth. Erica Belcher was 53.87, just behind Arcila, and Kenzie Buss went 53.99. Trailing her were Krissie Brandenburg and Kristin Steins.
UConn’s Christine Pedersen and Houston’s Taylor Gregory rounded out the championship heat.
Men’s 100 Back
In yet another big Louisville sweep, the 100 back went 1-2-3-4 Cardinals, with several men pulling a relatively tight double with the 100 fly, also a top-4 Louisville sweep.
Freshman Grigory Tarasevich won in 47.23; that just beat out 100 fly pool record-holder Aaron Young’s 47.31. Aaron Greene, another freshman, was third and Carlyle Blondell grabbed fourth.
SMU took the next two spots with Matas Andriekus and Ryan Koops. The Mustangs also won the B final with senior Braeden Newton’s 49.17.
Men’s 3-meter Diving
SMU junior Devin Burnett won his second diving event of the weekend, scoring 389.45 to top teammate Bryce Klein by 10. Junior Hayden Hodges chipped in a 357.85 performance to make it a 1-2-3 sweep for the Mustangs, exactly as the 1-meter event was Thursday night.
UConn’s John Brice was fourth with a 331.80, and two more divers got over 300 – Sean Piner of Louisville and Tony Cortright from Connecticut.
Women’s 400 Medley Relay
SMU came together to set up a big-time 400 medley relay. Isabella Arcila, Rachel Nicol, Marne Erasmus and Nina Rangelova went 3:33.21 to smash two seconds off the pool record and top Louisville, who fought hard through the very last split.
Arcila was a field-best 53.43 leading off, and Nicol split 59.68, second only to Louisville’s Andee Cottrell. Kelsi Worrell was a fast 51.3 swimming butterfly to put Louisville just .06 back of the leaders, but Rangelova split 48.3 coming home to ice things for the Mustangs. Louisville wound up going 3:33.99, also under the old pool record.
Rutgers took third with a 3:39.84 – Joanna Wu was 53.5 on the backstroke.
Men’s 400 Medley Relay
In what was the theme of the night on the men’s side, Louisville crushed the field to win the 400 medley relay. Grigory Tarasevich, Thomas Dahlia, Aaron Young and Joao de Lucca went 3:10.94 to break the pool record the Cards set back in 2011 by two seconds.
De Lucca was 42.87 on the anchor leg. Despite appearing not fully rested, de Lucca has been very solid at this meet, building anticipation for what he’s capable of come NCAAs. He was out in 20.5 on that split with a pretty average relay exchange, and his extremely strong front-halves of races should be thrilling to watch the rest of this post-season.
Connecticut took second, aided by a DQ to second-place SMU for a false start. The Huskies were 3:17.21 with a 53.7 from breaststroker Lachezar Shumkov.
Louisville has now really dug in at the top of the points. The women lead by 214 and the men by 215.5, with SMU second in both standings.
