Denison Women, UIndy Men Win 2023 Denison Invitational
Two more pool records fell on the final day of the Denison Invite. Emory’s Jake Meyer continued to impress in the men’s breaststroke events.
2023 Denison Invitational
- November 29-December 2, 2023
- Trumbull Aquatics Center, Granville Ohio
- Short Course Yards (25 yards)
- Start Times
- Prelims: 10:00am (EST)
- Finals: 6:00pm (EST)
- Meet Central
- Live Results
- Livestream
- Long Course Time Trials Recap
- Day 1 Finals Recap
- Day 2 Finals Recap
The 2023 Denison Invitational concluded with the 1650 free, 200 back, 100 free, 200 breast, 200 fly, and 400 free relay.
Denison won both the women’s and men’s mile. First, Quinn Brown shaved 1.2 seconds off her best time to touch first (16:49.01) ahead of teammate Tara Witkowski (16:53.26). Witkowski led through the 750 mark, until Brown pulled ahead of her. Lucas Conrads won the men’s event, stopping the clock in 15:31.56. Conrads led wire-to-wire and now slots in as the #2 fastest performer this year in D3.
Next up, UIndy swept the 200 backstroke. Mia Krstevska was the only swimmer in the women’s event to crack 2:00, clocking 1:58.06 for the win and a new best time by 0.51 seconds to rank #3 in D2 this season. Behind her, Denison first-year Olivia Chow dipped under 2:01 for the first time after setting a personal best by two-hundredths in prelims (2:00.63). Chow now ranks #3 in D3.
In the men’s 200 back, Cedric Buessing went three-for-three in event wins and pool records at this meet, stopping the clock at 1:43.37 for a D2 NCAA A cut. Alex McCormick, who owned the previous pool record and then lowered it in prelims (1:44.56), ending up matching the old pool record (1:44.76), finishing 2nd overall.
Eastern Michigan picked up their first win of the meet thanks to first-year Marlee Christie, who won the women’s 100 free (50.97), shaving over a second off her previous best in the process.
UIndy dominated the men’s 100 free, taking 1st through 6th place. Bartosz Mielniczuk led the charge (44.21), followed by Aqeel Joseph (44.41), Joao Silva (44.42), Oskar Sawicki (44.49), Diego Mas (44.56), and Jeron Thompson (44.75). Emory’s Caden Bjornstad, who swam under 45 seconds for the first time in prelims (44.90), matched that time exactly to finish 7th and was the only D3 athlete sub-45.
UIndy continued their run of event wins with Celina Schmidt in the women’s 200 breast (2:11.07). Schmidt already held the top time in D2 this season, but dropped nearly three seconds from her best time to assert herself atop the rankings. That time would have won the D2 NCAA title last season by over half a second. Behind her, Denison sophomore Drue Theilking nearly matched her best time for 2nd (2:15.93).
The men’s 200 breast was all Jake Meyer of Emory, who closed out an impressive meet with a new best time of 1:55.02. That took over a second off of his previous best, which he set en route to a runner-up finish at D3 NCAAs last March. He was already ranked #1 in D3 this season with a 1:59.17 from the Emory Fall Invitational. Henri Bonnault (1:59.11), Elijah Venos (1:59.14), and Patrick Daly (1:59.62) also slot in as the #2, #3, and #4 performers this season respectively.
Both 200 fly events went to UIndy between Andrea Gomez Espinosa (2:01.89) and Elias Noe (1:46.90). That appears to be just the 6th time Noe has swum the yards version of this event, and is a best time by over a second.
The women’s 400 free relay was an exciting race between Emory’s ‘A’ relay and Denison’s ‘A’ and ‘B’. The three squads were separated by just 0.23 seconds at the finish, and it was Denison ‘B’ who came out on top (3:25.24). The quartet of Olivia Chow (51.48), Natalie English (51.45), Grace Kadlecik (51.51), and Annie Pfeufer (50.80) combined for the win. The fastest split of the field came from Emily Harris, who swam 50.79 anchoring Denison’s 3rd place ‘A’ relay.
UIndy closed out the meet with one more pool record, as the top four finishers in the individual 100 free joined forces in the men’s 400 free relay. Mielniczuk (44.33), Joseph (43.78), Sawicki (44.37), and Silva (43.54) clocked 2:56.02, taking out Denison’s record of 2:56.45 from 2021.
Team Scores
Women:
- Denison, 2090.5
- UIndy, 1508
- Emory, 1493.5
- Eastern Michigan 1235.5
- WashU, 883.5
- Emory & Henry, 286
Men:
- UIndy, 1941
- Denison, 1748
- Emory, 1647
- WashU, 1488
- Emory & Henry, 320
Unrelated but will there be any recap of the big Al invite?
Unrelated but in other d3 news frank applebaum broke his NCAA record in the 2fly in the cms-pp dual meet
I love continual the rise of the West Coast D3 swimming.
Woah was not expecting this for a dual meet did both teams suit for this? I wonder how fast Applebaum can go at SCIAC’s come February? Reference for time D2 record holder Jackson Lustig was 1:42.7 at the Purdue invite.
9 lanes at a mid-season meet is something ill never get used to
It was an interesting meet with D3 Emory, Wash U, Emory & Henry and Denison, D2 Champs Indy (with a lot of high level Internationals) and D1 Eastern Michigan (women only). Lots of quality swims.
Some observations:
Meyer meant business here. Times from this meet would have won both breast events at the Minnesota Invite (with Cal, Harvard, etc) in attendance. What’s in the water in Atlanta? Got to wonder if we’re gonna get a Meyer/Maas 100 & 200 breaststroke race at NCAAs. Maas was swimming backstroke at their midseason for some reason. Henri Bonnault and Liyang Sun also had a great meet to round out the Emory breaststrokers.
Denison men actually rallied well throughout this meet, and performed better than I think many expected them to. There were some great races.
Alex McCormick looks great at this point in the season, and WashU’s 8 free relay was strong as always.
What happened to Emory’s… Read more »
It sounds like a virus was making the rounds through Emory’s team the last two days.
Apparently there was some kind of sickness among the Emory men. We heard “stomach flu” and “a virus”. So, they had some key guys out of the meet.
i was one of the swimmers at the meet (not from emory), i noticed more and more people from all teams were getting sick but still being at the meet, myself included
Not that it means too much but Meyer is a SC master. He Henri and Sun probably have the fastest breaststroke group outside of division 1. And Henri is better at long course.
Yeah you’re right. I saw Bonnault get the trials cut at the time trials. He’s got a lot more time to improve his SCY too. So awesome that a D3 program has that kind of training prowess- I’d love to watch that training group. I mean, Meyer’s progression at Emory has been linear.
Poor guys got a tummyache
Tummy troubles :/ My bad