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"Our goal at the start of the day was to improve our record to 8-0, and we went out and did just that," said Navy head Women's swimming coach John Morrison. "It wasn't easy, by any means, though. Our team responded to the challenges of having some teammates down due to injuries and illnesses and of facing two very talented teams with some great team swims.
" The unsung heroes for us today were the ones who kept fighting for third and fourth-place finishes to score valuable points for us. We knew coming into the meet we would need to have just that to pull out the victories."
After Bucknell edged Navy in the 200-meter medley relay, Navy's Meakin Poor (Sr., Winnetka, Ill.) and Jenn Windstein (Jr., Lancaster, Pa.) continued their dominance in the 800-meter freestyle this season with Poor placing first (9:11.60) and Windstein second (9:18.47). Navy's Megan Welsh (Sr., Fort Lauderdale, Fla.) and UNCW's Apryl Kerstetter both recorded a 2:08.78 to share top honors in the 200-meter freestyle, then Tori Throckmorton (Sr., Ann Arbor, Mich.) gave Navy another victory by winning the 100-meter backstroke in a time of 1:05.08.
Bucknell and UNCW traded first and second-place showings in the 100-meter breast and the 200-meter fly, before Navy's Kelly Freeburn (Fr., Virginia Beach, Va.) posted a 26.86 to edge Kerstetter's time of 26.90 and win the 50-meter freestyle, then topped Kerstetter again by just under four-tenths of a second in the 100-meter free (58.31-58.69).
On the Men's side, Navy began the meet by having its 200-meter medley relay team record a 1:45.55 to edge UNCW by one-quarter of a second. Kevin Mukri (So., Silver Spring, Md.) then won the first individual swimming event of the day, the 800-meter freestyle in a time of 8:28.26, with teammates Jake Keefe (Sr., Cincinnati, Ohio), Andy Bockus (So., Oklahoma City, Okla.) and Ian Getzler (Jr., Naperville, Ill.) placing third, fourth and fifth, respectfully.
"I think the first two events of the day really set the tone for how we swam the rest of the meet," said Navy head swimming coach Bill Roberts. "The medley relay team and Kevin Mukri both sent a signal to the rest of the team that we were going to post some good times today."
UNCW's Dean Berman would hand Kevin Teague (So., Lexington, Ky.) only the second loss of his two-year career on the one-meter springboard, defeating Teague by a score of 351.75-332.30. Thorn continued Navy's victories in the pool, though, leading a 1-2-3-4 Navy finish in the 200-meter freestyle with a winning time of 1:55.18.
The Seahawks would win three-straight events as Adam Brenneman won the 100-meter backstroke, Wilson Trotter won the 100-meter breaststroke and Andres Buitrago won the 200-meter butterfly.
The Mids next picked up back-to-back wins as Mike Linn (Jr., Newhall, Calif.) won the 50-meter freestyle in a time of 23.58 and Teague bounced back to edge Berman by 12 points on the three-meter board. Brenneman would then earned his second victory of the day, edging Linn by 1.2 seconds in the 100-meter freestyle, but Mukri led a Navy sweep of the top-four places in the 200-meter backstroke.
"The 200 back sweep was huge," said Roberts. "The meet was at its closest at that time and the 16 points really gave us some breathing room."
William Schilling won the lone event of the day for Bucknell, taking the 200-meter breaststroke by one-hundredth of a second over Navy's Brian DeMell (Sr., Mentor, Ohio), 2:26.91-2:26.92, then Thorn won two of the next three events for the Mids -- the 400-meter freestyle by five seconds and the 200-meter individual medley by nearly four-tenths of a second. Sandwiched in between the pair of Thorn wins was a victory by Nathan Chessey of UNCW in the 100-meter butterfly.
