NC State caps dominating team wins at All-NC Invite while Arakelian shines for Queens

North Carolina State wrapped up team wins at the 3rd annual All-NC Invite, dominating the final two sessions on Saturday. The Wolfpack got wins from the usual suspects like Simonas Bilis, Natalie Labonge, Alexia Zevnik and Andreas Schiellerup among others. Freshman Ryan Held also came up with a big 100 free win.

Queens got a pair of titles from Caroline Arakelian between the two Saturday sessions, and Matt Josa added one of his own on the men’s side. In addition, East Carolina’s Bailie Monahan followed up her big 200 IM win from Friday night with a 200 fly win on Saturday.

The meet was run in three sessions, compressing the NCAA event lineup into two days. You can read our recap of the first session here.

Full results available on Meet Mobile.

Morning Session

NC State picked up right where it left off with the Saturday morning session, piling up 12 wins in 14 events.

The session kicked off with the 200 medley relays, where NC State kept its relay sweep alive. The Wolfpack women went 1:42.53 to win easily, buoyed by a 22.69 anchor split from Lauren Poli. The men kept pace, going 1:29.32 with a 19.5 anchor split from Simonas Bilis.

In the 400 IM, Caroline Arakelian nabbed the first win of the meet for Queens in 4:23.36. East Carolina’s Julie Lajoie was second at 4:24.49 as the host team fell out of the top 2 for the first time this meet. But NC State got back on top with Anton Ipsen‘s 3:57.61 in the men’s race, a win over Queens’ Nick Arakelian.

Natalie Labonge went 56.80 to win the 100 fly, denying a second win to East Carolina’s Bailie Monahan (the 200 IM). Monahan was 57.13 for second. In the men’s race, Simonas Bilis took home the title in 49.24.

The 200 free was another sweep for NC State, Lauren Rhodes went 1:49.95 to lead the women, with Rachel Muller and Kristin Connors second and third. Scott Johnson won the men’s race in 1:40.02, a touchout of his freshman teammate Colin Ellington (1:40.18).

Kayla Brumbaum was 1:03.08 to win the 100 breast, and Lauren Poli touched out Megan Sellers of East Carolina by a hundredth to hold the top two for NC State. For the men it was NC State’s Derek Hren who won handily, his 55.23 a full second faster than the field.

Hannah Freyman made it 8 straight event wins for NC State in the 100 back, going 56.39. But Queens got its second win in the men’s event courtesy of Matt Josa, the sophomore sensation who went 48.46 and won by over two seconds.

The session ended with the miles for each gender. Rachel Muller got her second win for NC State, going 16:58.56 and winning by over 13 seconds. Muller also won the 500 on Friday night and was coming off the 200 free earlier in this session.

Adam Linker followed up his 500 free win with a 1650 win of his own, going 15:46.74 for the title.

In the diving portion, NC State’s Rachel Mumma and Grant Saale each repeated as event winners. Mumma scored 286.95 on 3-meter and Saale took the men’s 1-meter with a 314.33.

Evening Session

The final session of the meet opened with a second win for Queens’ Caroline Arakelian. Her 1:59.55 was a runaway win over East Carolina’s Julie Lajoie (2:02.43) and a host of NC State swimmers.

Wolfpack star Andreas Schiellerup won the 200 back for the men, going 1:49.26. That was about a half-second up on his teammate and Auburn transfer Jacob Siar, competing in his first meet as a member of NC State. Siar was 1:49.88 in that event.

NC State’s swimmers had a great intrasquad battle in the women’s 100 free. Alexia Zevnik came out with the win at 51.03, but had to fight hard to beat Rikki Bonnema‘s 51.13. Bonnema was the 50 free winner Friday night in an impressive 22-second swim.

For the men, exciting freshman Ryan Held was the pace-setter, going 45.24 for the win. That kept NC State on top with East Carolina’s Nikola Simic (45.77) close to stealing the win.

NC State’s Kayla Brumbaum completed her sweep of the breaststrokes, going 2:17.41 to win the 200-yard distance. That was just over a second ahead of East Carolina’s Vendela Norrman (2:18.44). In the men’s race, the teams reversed that order – Rokas Cepulis won in 2:02.51 for East Carolina while NC State’s Derek Hren (the 100 breast champ) was second in 2:02.86.

Bailie Monahan made it two in a row for East Carolina, following up her 200 IM title Friday night with a 2:01.40 win in the women’s 200 fly. Julia Lajoie made it a 1-2 finish for the Pirates, going 2:02.02.

Christian McCurdy won the men’s race in 1:46.09, a big win over Queens top swimmer Matt Josa (1:49.68).

NC State won the women’s 400 free relay in 3:24.58, getting 50-second splits from Alexia Zevnik (50.54) and Natalie Labonge (50..34). Showing off their depth, the Wolfpack went 1-2-3 in the event.

The Wolfpack also closed the men’s meet with a win, going 2:58.23 with a blazing 43.27 split from Simonas Bilis. Scott Johnson was also 44.69 on the anchor leg and NC State went 1-2 in the relay.

Final Team Scores

Men’s Top 5

  1. NC State – 1681
  2. East Carolina – 1251
  3. Davidson – 1061
  4. Gardner-Webb – 892
  5. Queens – 811

Women

  1. NC State – 1580
  2. East Carolina – 1413
  3. Davidson – 1126
  4. Gardner-Webb – 883
  5. Campbell – 815

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Anonymous
9 years ago

East Carolina^

Don’t think an Eastern Carolina exists. Shoutout to State though, easily my pick to dominate ACC’s on the men’s side as well as ECU being my pick to win AAC’s for the men.

Todd
9 years ago

Where was UNC and Duke?

Admin
Reply to  Todd
9 years ago

Todd – they chose not to attend. Duke had their intrasquad meet this weekend.

About Jared Anderson

Jared Anderson

Jared Anderson swam for nearly twenty years. Then, Jared Anderson stopped swimming and started writing about swimming. He's not sick of swimming yet. Swimming might be sick of him, though. Jared was a YMCA and high school swimmer in northern Minnesota, and spent his college years swimming breaststroke and occasionally pretending …

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