As reported here over the last several days, the 2014 Bluegrass Mountain Conference championship was the fastest ever with 22 new records in the books.
But the conference meet produces other winners as well: those who make their national championship “A” cuts at this last-ditch opportunity. As the Bluegrass Mountain Conference is made up of schools headed to three different national meets (NCAA D2, NCAA D3, and NAIA) there are a lot of different goals and strategies going on during this meet.
SwimSwam would like to congratulate the following new qualifiers who made their respective national “A” cuts at the BMC Championships:
NAIA
- Ana Torres-Rivera, SCAD, 1650
- Anna Blackburn, SCAD, 100 fly
- Bradley Green, SCAD, 200 IM/ 400 IM
- Claire Partlow, SCAD, 100 breast
- David Scott, SCAD, 100 fly/ 200 fly
- Heather Dundey, SCAD, 100 fly
- Heather Partlow, SCAD, 100 fly
- Joel Salomonnson, SCAD, 100 fly
- Pat Cardillo, SCAD, 100 breast
- Roger Kjos, SCAD, 50 free/ 100 free
- Tarika Thienapirak, SCAD, 100 back
- Tim Jarnvik, SCAD, 100 free
NCAA Division II
- Alex Menke, Queens, 1000 free
- Caroline Arakelian, Queens, 200 back/ 400 IM
- Hannah Peiffer, Queens, 100 back
- Meridith Boudreaux, Queens, 1650
- Nic Eriksson, Queens, 100 breast/ 200 breast
- Zach Phelps, Queens, 200 back
- Queens men 200 medley relay
- Queens men 400 free relay
- Queens men 400 medley relay
- Queens men 800 free relay
- Queens women 200 medley relay
- Queens women 400 free relay
- Queens women 800 free relay
- Roman Kanyuka, Wingate, 200 breast
- Sofia Petrenko, Wingate, 200 free/ 200 IM
- Tim Kniffler, Wingate, 200 IM
- Vika Arkhipova, Wingate, 200 back
- Wingate women 200 free relay
- Wingate women 200 medley relay
NCAA Division III
- Evan Holder, Johns Hopkins, 200 IM
- Samantha Fox, Johns Hopkins, 200 IM
- Johns Hopkins women 200 medley relay
- Johns Hopkins women 800 free relay
If we’ve missed anyone, please feel free to let us know in the Comments section.
The real winners are the swimmers from Johns Hopkins and Washington and Lee who are getting a real education unlike those from Queens and WIngate. The lack of academic qualifications needed for some of the DII schools in this conference is alarming.
Really? Because both Queens University Swimming and Wingate University Swimming members have NCAA Division II Academic All-America Honorees… doesn’t sound like they’re not getting an education to me.
Interestingly enough, the GPA requirement for NCAA DII athletes is roughly a 2.0, so if the students slack off, they don’t compete. They have a prescribed timeline as to which they have to attain a certain number of credits to remain eligible.
As far as schools like Hopkins go, obviously they’re excellent schools. You don’t have to be Einstein to realize that. However, There are no NCAA DIII academic standards. The NCAA leaves it up to the school policies to determine eligibility to compete. Not exactly motivational from an athletics standpoint.
Instead of making irrational and offense comments about the academic programs at certain Division II schools, you may want to do a little research. The Queens University of Charlotte men and women ranked in the top ten in Division II for their GPA in the Spring of 2013. The woman ranking first with a 3.65 GPA. http://www.cscaa.org/downloads/2013ScholarAllAmericaD2forWebsite.pdf
It seems to me that their program is emphasizing success in the pool as well as the classroom. Maybe next time you shouldn’t be so quick to judge. Most student athletes work extremely hard to maintain good grades and achieve their goals in the pool.
The 2014 BMC Conference Championship was a fast meet and I congratulate… Read more »
As an avid swim fan and parent of a swimmer from WV I was surprised not surprised to see meet records falling and fast swimming coming from this particular conference meet. Unfortunately, most of the D2 & D3 swims at this meet were not “A” cuts. I hate to be the bearer of bad news and lower the number of “real” winners. Congratulations to those who achieved the “A” standard and looking forward to another great NCAA meet. Also, a big congratulations goes out to the teams who battled throughout the competition and to the Wingate men on 7 consecutive titles and the women for their second.
I don’t believe Division III has A cuts for relays. I also did not see where either D3 A cut was made in the 200 im
I may be wrong, but I thought the women’s D3 cut was 2:04.98, which Samantha Fox achieved easily with her 4.29 finals swim. On the other hand, I think I made a mistake about Evan Holder. Sorry about that.
I think you may have confused 2013 selection times with A cuts. The A cut in the D3 women’s 200 IM is 2:00.57. While Samantha Fox’s 2:04.29 will probably be selected for the meet, it is not an A cut as the article suggests.
I feel that the swimmers who got A cuts in DII need more recognition than the NAIA A cuts. DII A cuts are veryimpressive times whereas as long as you don’t DQ, you get a NAIA A cut. Please give these athletes the credit they deserve as they are not comparable to a NAIA national cut.
What a very mature and upstanding statement; “I feel that the swimmers who got A cuts in DII need more recognition than the NAIA A cuts. DII A cuts are very impressive times whereas as long as you don’t DQ, you get a NAIA A cut.” Really, as long as you don’t get DQ’d?
Most of the top NAIA swimmers also have times sufficient to compete at the DII level; they just chose to go to an NAIA school.
These athletes most definitely deserve recognition, as they worked very hard to get those “unimpressive” times.
LOL, you must swim NAIA…..
That’s right; my son does, and he has three D1 “B” cuts, in addition to a slew of DII “A” cuts.
Grow up.
That’s funny, as there are only 4 DII ‘A’ cuts in NAIA so far this year. Unless your son is Daniel Ramirez and you consider 2 a “slew.”
In fact, there were 7 DII ‘A’ cuts at NAIA nationals last year including relays. Not bad, but there’s still only two guys at most that could make a case for “a slew.”
JP: yes, you are right; I looked here: http://www.collegeswimming.com/news/2013/may/01/division-ii-time-standards-out-2014/
and there are two “A” standard columns; I used the wrong column (should be “B”). So he has a slew of “B” cuts (7) and 1 “A” cut from his NCSA Jr swims.