Catholic University Becomes First Program To Sweep Landmark Conference Swimming

Catholic University’s women won the program’s first-ever Landmark Conference (D-III) title, and with a fourth-straight men’s win, Catholic U became the first program to sweep Landmark swimming titles.

Full results

Catholic U’s Caroline Beal set a new conference record in winning the 100 back – she was 57.58. The junior won that race by three tenths over Lauren Byrne from Scranton. That denied Byrne a three-win meet. The Scranton junior won the 200 IM (2:04.41) and 200 back (2:05.20), breaking conference meet records in both races. And her 23.70 leadoff in the 200 free relay was yet another conference record.

Swimmer of the meet on the women’s side went to Drew senior Malavika Vishwanath. She dominated the 500 free (5:04.14), 200 free (1:54.47), and 1650 free (17:46.97), though she didn’t approach her conference records in any of the three. Vishwanath did split 1:54.0 on Drew’s 800 free relay, joining Katie Jefferson, Katie Cashin and Mackenzie Garcia to break the conference record in 7:46.73.

Other conference records for the women:

• Byrne joined Audrey Campo, Liz Howlin and Amber Diehl to go 1:36.36 and break the conference 200 free relay record.
• Drew’s Katie Cashin, a freshman, broke the 400 IM mark in 4:32.30.

On the men’s side, Catholic broke the only two conference records to fall at this year’s meet. Chris Grunbok went 2:03.75 to win the 200 breast. His teammates George Isaacs, Matthew Mahon, Jeffrey Schriefer-Flores and Kevin Jay went 1:23.78 to break the conference 200 free relay record, led by 20.6 splits from Mahon and Schriefer-Flores.

Swimmer of the Year went to Catholic’s Gregory McCarthy, who won the 200 IM (1:51.82), 400 IM (4:02.53), and 200 fly (1:52.96).

Team Scores

Women:

1. Catholic – 814.5
2. Scranton – 719
3. Susquehanna – 613
4. Drew – 564.5
5. Juniata – 218
6. Elizabethtown – 208
7. Goucher – 89

Men:

1. Catholic – 939
2. Susquehanna – 637.5
3. Drew – 541.5
4. Scranton – 535
5. Elizabethtown – 249
6. Goucher – 177
7. Juniata – 56

Catholic U sophomore Daniel Taylor put together a hype video of the championships, which you can see below: