2023 PATRIOT LEAGUE CHAMPIONSHIPS
- February 15-18, 2023
- Kinney Natatorium – Lewisburg, PA
- 25 Yards (SCY)
- Defending Champions:
- Women: Navy (11x)
- Men Navy (18x)
- Start Times: 10am (ET) prelims/6pm (ET) finals
- Event Schedule
- Championship Central
- Live Results
- Live Stream
After a back and forth session, it came down to the 400 free relay to decide the 2023 Men’s Patriot League champions.
Navy held a four point lead over Army, but Army was the top seed in the relay, and had beaten Navy in this same relay to secure a win in their dual meet earlier this season.
Watch:
Army is lane 4, with Navy above them in lane 5.
Jonah Harm put the Midshipmen ahead of Army after the first 100, leading off in 43.75, with Tanner Falls close behind in 43.95. Next, sophomore Austin Lockhart split 43.90, but Army’s Ben Vorthmann closed the gap to just .15 seconds with a 43.85. Everet Andrew clawed the lead out again for Navy in 43.85, with Will Rankin clocking 43.80 for Army. Garrett McGovern dove in for Navy exactly a half-second ahead of Army anchor Owen Harlow.
Immediately, Harlow began to close the gap to McGovern. At the 50-yard mark, the sophomore had eked out Army’s first lead of the relay, flipping a tenth ahead of McGovern. Harlow was still ahead at the final turn, but McGovern pushed his underwater and in the home stretch he pulled himself back even with Harlow. McGovern split 42.99 to give Navy the win in 2:54.09, just .34 seconds ahead of the Black Knights. Harlow’s 42.83 split was the fastest in the field and Army’s 2:54.43 was a new Academy record.
Neither team was leading the field at the first exchange though. Thanks to 100 free individual champion Caleb Kelly (43.60), it was the Greyhounds who led after 100-yards. Though the Greyhounds didn’t have the depth to hang with Army and Navy, they were locked in an exciting race with Bucknell for third. Max Verheyen, the 400 IM champion, held off a charging Chris Fabian to grab third in 2:56.32, two-hundredths ahead of Bucknell.
The Black Knights began to close the gap to Navy in the 1650 free, where they swept the podium. Brice Barrieault, who was later named Men’s Rookie of the Meet, clocked 15:09.45 to win. Ian Tansill swam 15:12.83 for second and out of the early heats, Wes Tate dropped over five seconds to place third in 15:15.59.
They kept rolling in the 200 back with a 2-3-4-5 finish behind conference champion Henry Mueller of Loyola (1:44.42). That swim marks Mueller’s first time sub-1:45. With the 62 points they picked up from this event, Army took the overall lead from Navy by 38 points.
Kelly won the 100 freestyle, giving Loyola it’s second conference champion in as many events. Kelly swam a meet record 43.27 to win gold. The time is a new personal best for him, undercutting the 43.63 he earned silver with last year. Navy’s Andrew got silver in 43.72, and Bucknell’s Leo Kuyl lowered his school record for the second time that day to earn bronze in 43.92–his first swim sub-44.
After the 100 freestyle, Army was still ahead of Navy, thanks to Harlow, Falls, and Vorthmann finishing 4-6-8 to outscore Andrew and Lockhart’s 2-7 placement.
Army’s Kohen Rankin won the 200 breast in an Academy record 1:54.80, earning a sweep of the breaststrokes at this meet. His teammate Bruce Bannister took bronze in 1:57.42, while Navy’s Jackson Schultz finished second in 1:55.15. Army still held a lead, but Navy had four swimmers in the ‘A’ final, allowing them to start closing the gap.
Pat Colwell won the final individual event of the meet, the 200 fly, in 1:45.08. Bucknell’s butterfly duo of John Gehrig and Shane Wynne went 2-3 to put two Bison onto the podium. It was a tight race between Colwell and Gehrig, as Colwell pulled ahead on the final 50 and out-touched Gehrig by five-hundredths.
The entire final was close actually, as third through seventh finished within .45 seconds of each other. Navy went 2/1 in the event compared to Army’s 1/0, so it was here that Navy regained control of the lead by just four points heading into the relay.
Navy won the meet by 10 points, the narrowest margin of victory during their winning streak. It’s the second narrowest margin of victory in the men’s history of the conference. The only meet closer was in 1994, when Army beat Lehigh by 8.5 points.
Final Scores
- Navy – 856.5
- Army – 846.5
- Bucknell – 538.5
- Loyola – 455
- BU – 247
- Lehigh – 180.5
- American – 148.5
- Lafayette – 132
- Holy Cross – 110
- Colgate – 107
Awards
- Men’s Swimmer of the Meet: Jonah Harm, Navy
- Men’s Rookie of the Meet: Brice Barrieault, Army
- Men’s Diver of the Year: Blakeman Shaw, Navy
- Men’s Coach of the Year: Brandt Nigro, Army
- Men’s Diving Coach of the Year: Rich MacDonald, Navy
I was watching the meet, was a good amount of blatantly glanced over illegal swimming especially breaststroke. Seemed like it was because the meet was going to be so close.
it IS crazy how when you bring more people you can score more points. comforting to know army would have beat them had they not hid behind their diving and the rest of the conference instead of having faith in their swimmers they left at home to get the job done for them. congrats to both teams though! hell of a finish.
Interesting enough, Navy was perfectly within the constraints and regulations of the patriot league championship format. With divers counting as 1/3 of a person, the optimal point outcome was taking more than the usual amount of divers. Thus, Army actually brought more swimmers than Navy did. Navy just decided to bring three more divers to account for the lesser amount of swimmers.
Woah, isn’t that what a team is? You know, swimmers and divers together? I swam at ASU a while back and our coaches ALWAYS maximized lineups for points. Swimmers are a full spot and divers are 1/2 a swimmer (I think?). I can’t pin blame on the Army swimmers here, they fought to the bitter, bitter end but I’d say that this meet just went to Navy coaches preparing a better meet lineup.
maybe yall shouldn’t have put all your eggs in one basket and added time from a december dual meet lol
The December dual meet is more important than the conference meet for the academic. Certain competitions are designated as Star competitions for the academy. The dual meet is the army navy football game for the swim teams.
And the Patriot League conference is the college football playoffs (go Dawgs!!)
I’m an NMSD alum lol you don’t need to explain it to me. I’ll give credit where credit is due, Army swam lights out in December, but a dual meet is a dual meet regardless. If your team is swimming their best in December and performing worse at the final meet of the season then their priorities are wrong
Army vs Navy % PB
Army – 62%
Navy – 45%
Patriot League % PB
Navy – 53%
Army – 48%
I’m not sure if I’d say Navy’s swimming was really the key factor or if navy just had 5 capable divers and were smart enough to use them knowing that diving in the conference wasn’t very strong
All I’m hearing is excuses lol, just accept that you guys swam worse at the end of the season. We had the same four divers we brought to Army, plus one senior who scored 7 points total in diving
Excuses? I never said army should have won, nor did i say I have any affiliation with the team. All I’m saying is it sounds like you’re bashing army for swimming poorly at the end of the year when ultimately navy didn’t swim much better. From an outside perspective some swam better and some swam worse, the same can be said for Navy. Also college swimming dual meet only 3 divers can score, so even if you went 1-2-3-4 in the dual meet only 1-2-3 would matter so adding in a fourth and fifth diver in the mix can change things. Pretty sure the article posted said that Navys highest scoring event was the 1m.
Hiding behind divers? Am I mistaken in saying Navy won all 5 relays?
Looks like Army didn’t swim four from the psych sheet – would that have made a difference I wonder?
Navy just has that dawg in them…
As a former patriot league swimmer, I would have loved to be on deck for that final relay. So exciting. Congrats to both teams.
right before the start it was DEAD silent it was insane
hope the guy that said that AU wouldn’t beat lafayette is doing well
He’s not. Relay dq didn’t help.
What an exciting finish to the meet. Well earned coach of the year for Brandt Nigro and congratulations to the Navy team for defending their title. Looks like Navy will have some studs coming in next season, curious if Ben Irwin was in this article photo above or if it was just accepting the 200 breast medal. So nice of them to allow their recruit to get a medal for them
Wouldn’t that be an NCAA violation?
Is it? Doesn’t seem too bad, I wonder what would happen if that were the case.
Yes – NCAA violation and incredible stupid thing for Navy to allow happen.
What rule does it violate?
cope and seethe
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Cope%20and%20seethe
Seems a little petty coming from an army supporter…
Going to assume you’re not an old timer if you’re calling that petty. Records are meant to be broken, not rules. It’s not like it will affect the meet at all since they didn’t cheat, and an ncaa rule violation probably won’t do much of anything and navy can continue doing what they do. Navy is so great that something like this won’t hinder their success
hksafl
Didn’t army forget to enter their divers into the meet last year. Then proceeded to violate NCAA rules and the integrity of the championships by allowing them to compete?
Did they really? I can’t believe a team would forget to enter their divers