Louisville, KY, November 1, 2014 – The University of Louisville Women’s and Men’s Swim & Dive teams threw the hammer down today, as they won convincingly over the University of Cincinnati Bearcats at Ralph Wright Natatorium. The Lady Cardinals saw strong swims by their dependable performers in Tanja Kylliainen, Lucy Kramer, and Kelsi Worrell, while the Cardinal men earned points with wins by Carlos Claverie and Matthias Lindenbauer, among others.
The final scores were 204-94 in favor of the Louisville women, and 210.5-87.5 in favor of the Louisville men in this cross-border clash.
Women’s Meet
Senior Tanja Kylliainen put on a show on her home turf, as she tackled the first three consecutive Women’s events of the meet. She first led off the 200 Medley Relay with a split of 26.03, followed by Louisville teammates Andee Cottrell (28.63), Kelsi Worrell (23.69), and Maggie Patterson (23.41). This foursome’s combined time of 1:41.76 claimed victory over the Louisville B team and University of Cincinnati, whose A team placed third.
Kylliainen continued the winning streak by placing first in the Women’s 1650 Freestyle, in a time of 16:38.00, which led her teammate, freshman Marah Pugh, by almost 18 seconds. The best Cincinnati finisher was junior Hope Andrews with a 17:41.97. Kylliainen was immediately up for one more event, as she tackled the 200 freestyle, where she ended up in second place to Cincinnati sophomore Jackie Keire, whose time of 1:49.93 won the event. Keire would go on to earn an additional first place victory in the Women’s 100 Free event with a time of 51.08, followed by Lady Cardinals Rachel Grooms (51.45) and Abbie Houck (52.92). The two individual wins by Keire captured the only first place finishes for the Bearcat Women over the course of the entire meet.
Adding to the commanding team point lead, Lady Cardinal Lucy Kramer (junior) came away with both Breaststroke victories, clocking a time of 1:05.01 and 2:21.13 in the 100 and 200 distances, respectively. Teammate Kristina Steins (sophomore) swept the Backstroke events as well, earning wins in the 100 with a 56.96 and a 2:02.69 in the 200 distance. Louisville standout, Kelsi Worrell, just hammered the competitors with the 200 Butterfly win in a time of 1:58.27, earning an NCAA B-cut in the process. Worrell was not in the 100 Butterfly field, but fellow Louisville swimmer, freshman Hannah Magnuson, stepped up and earned top spot with her time of 56.72 over two Cincinnati Bearcats, Rachel Dover (57.41) and Luliia Fedoreeva (1:00.25). Worrell did nab the first place spot in the Women’s 50 Free in a time of 23.06, slightly off the 22.88 NCAA B-cut she earned back on October 10th against Xavier University.
Louisville Women swept the 500 freestyle, led by Pugh with the winning time of 4:55.82 over teammates Devon Bibault who clocked a 5:01.24 and Lauren Herich with a 5:07.30. Part One of the meet’s grand finale on the Women’s side came in the form of Tanja Kylliainen’s blistering NCAA B-cut time of 4:13.64, which was almost twenty seconds faster than the rest of the field, to earn the top spot in the Women’s 400 IM. This was certainly a taste of redemption for Kylliainen, as she was DQ’d in this event at last week’s Quad Meet against the University of Michigan, University of Texas, and Indiana University. The Second Part of the meet’s exciting conclusion involved the foursome of Kneppers, Worrell, LeClair, and Patterson cleaning up in the 200 Free Relay. Worrell’s speedy split of 22.31 was well below her clocked split of 22.94 in the same event at last week’s Quad Meet.
Men’s Meet
The story was the same on the Men’s side, where the Louisville Cardinals simply outmatched the Cincinnati Bearcats in nearly every event. Things started out strongly, as the Louisville team of Grigory Tarasevich, Thomas Dahlia, David Boland, and Trevor Carroll combined to win the 200 Medley Relay in a time of 1:29.13. Of note, Caryle Blondell’s split on the Louisville “B” Relay was clocked at 19.93.
Continuing with their domination, junior Bryan Draganosky won the Men’s 1650 Freestyle in a time of 15:39.32; an event in which he was remarkably consistent split-wise (all were in the 28-point range, with only the first 50 (25.61) and ninth 50 (27.94) as exceptions). The 200 Free event was swept by Louisville, as sophomore Matthias Lindenbauer earned the 200 Freestyle victory with a time of 1:38.81 over teammates Ruben Izarra (1:40.17) and Jonathan Zoucha (1:42.02). Lindenbauer would also win the Men’s 500 Freestyle event later in the meet, in a time of 4:34.81, winning narrowly over Cincinnati freshman Chris Bready who clocked a speedy 4:34.96.
In the backstroke events, Louisville sophomores Nick Hasemann and Josh Quallen earned opposite first place and second place finishes in each race. Hasemann won the 100 Back in a time of 50.32 over Quallen’s time of 50.67; while Quallen’s time of 1:50.81 in the 200 Back bettered that of Hasemann’s second place time of 1:52.13.
The freshman duo of Carlos Claverie and Todd Owen also put up some points for the Cardinals in multiple events. Claverie earned first place in the 100 Breast event in a time of 55.46, just off the NCAA B-cut (55.39) and much better than the 56.11 he clocked at last week’s Quad Meet. Owen’s time of 56.47 earned him second place over Cincinnati’s Dan Gilbertson, who earned third with a time of 57.16. Claverie would earn his second first place finish in the 400 IM with a time of 3:56.85, while Owen went to win the 200 Breast victory in a time of 2:03.34.
In the sprint freestyle events, Cardinal Caryle Blondell (senior) ran away with the 50 Freestyle race in a time of 20.71. That is a bit slower than the NCAA B-cut time of 20.18 he clocked at the Quad Meet in Ann Arbor last weekend. Thomas Dahlia (senior) earned second place in the 50 in a time of 21.16, while Estefan Albeiro (sophomore) earned third in a time of 21.51. Of note, Matthias Lindenbauer finished in a time of 20.73 as an exhibition race.
Versatile sophomore Trevor Carroll of Louisville topped the 100 Freestyle field in a commanding win by over a second. His time of 45.05 was well ahead of teammate Christian Garkani (47.43) and Michael Kaplan from Cincinnati (47.43). It will be interesting to see if Carroll pursues the 100 Free in earnest as an individual event as the season continues.
Cincinnati’s only event win came in the form of freshman Ryan DePietro’s victory in the 200 Butterfly event with a time of 1:53.24, which was a narrow victory at that; He only out-touched second place Rudy Edelen of Louisville by one tenth of a second (1:53.34)! In the 100 Butterfly distance, Louisville’s Aaron Greene won the in 49.96 over two Cincinnati swimmers, Nick Lafleur (51.96) and Hunger Pasek (52.22). The Louisville Men finished just as strong as they started, with their win in the 200 Freestyle Relay. The team of Carroll, Blondell, Lindenbauer, and Dahlia won in a time of 1:21.30, with Blondell splitting a 19.93 for his part.
Up next, The University of Louisville Cardinals will be hosting North Carolina at home on November 7th and 8th. The University of Cincinnati Bearcats will be visiting Eastern Michigan on November 15th.
