NCAA Division II Day Four Team Recaps

Limestone: SECOND PLACE IN 400 FREE RELAYS PROPELS SAINTS TO 4TH PLACE FINISH
Limestone College men’s swim team finished Saturday night with a second place time in the 400 freestyle relay that would ultimately push them ahead of Ouachita Baptist University, taking fourth place in overall team rankings at the 2009 NCAA DII National Swimming & Diving Championships.
 
The 400 team, consisting of Craig Jordens (Cape Town, South Africa), Gilles Gutnecht (Marseille, France), Anders Melin (Karslatd, Sweden), and Goran Majlat (Split, Croatia), finished in 2:57.10, 0:01.47 behind the first place Drury team.  The second place time earned Limestone 34 team points giving them a total  279.5.  Ouachita Baptist, which finished in fifth, earned 28 points, giving them a team total of 259. 
 
Limestone men’s swim team captured two titles at the NCAA Division II National Swimming & Diving Championships.  The Saints, who were the national record holders and defending National Champions in the 200 freestyle relay, set a new national record in capturing consecutive championships in the event. 
 
Craig Jordens (Cape Town, South Africa), Matt Parsonage (Durban, South Africa), Anders Melin (Karlstad, Sweden), and Goran Majlat (Split, Croatia) teamed up in the 200 freestyle relay final to capture first place.  The team set a new national benchmark in the event, eclipsing the record time of 1:20.69, with a blistering 1:19.25.  The relay team’s championship effort bested second place Wingate by 0:01.34 (1:20.59).
 
Majlat also earned Limestone’s first ever individual title by winning the 50 freestyle final.  The sophomore narrowly beat Tritons Dan Perdew in the sprint, using 0:00.06 to capture first place.  Majlat’s final time of 19.63 fell short of the national record of 19.40.  Jordens rounded out the top 3 in the event, recording a time of 19.72.

Wayne State: Warriors win seven national titles
In the fastest meet in NCAA Division II history, both the Wayne State men's and women's swimming and diving teams achieved their best national finishes in school history this past week in Houston.

According to the NCAA, student-athletes set a total of 24 meet records during the four-day event. Wayne State notched two of those records among its seven championships, including three for the women's team, its first in program history.

The Warrior men, who led the 28-team field Thursday and Friday, finished second to Drury University, 543.504.5, to place in the top eight for the fifth straight year. The Panthers won their fifth consecutive title title, but did so by the slimmest margin since 2002 when Cal State Bakersfield edged North Dakota, 529-507.

Despite seeing its 36.5-point lead slip away on Saturday, the men's squad wrapped up the meet with four championships and 16 school records.

Duarte Mourao (Loures, Portugal) collected three titles, winning the 100 and 200 butterfly events and swimming in the record-setting 400 medley relay with Sean Smith (Auburn, Mich./Bay City Western), Jesper Akesson (Malmo, Sweden), and Sebastian Rzepa (Clinton Twp., Mich./Chippewa Valley). He also finished third in the 400 individual medley and fourth in the 200 IM, while contributing to WSU's second-place 200 medley relay and third-place 800 freestyle relay.

On Saturday, Smith broke the 2005 record in the 200 backstroke set by Henderson State's Emre Celik.

Fernando Costa (Porto, Portugal) was among the top distance swimmers at nationals, placing second, third, and fourth in the 500, 1650, and 1000 freestyles, respectively.

The Wayne State women's team, which set 14 school records in Houston, led after the first day but settled into second place for the remainder of the meet. The Warriors trailed only Drury, 618.5-453.5, as the Panthers earned their second team championship on the women's side in the last three years.

The women have improved upon their national performances significantly since 2006, when WSU finished 24th at the NCAA meet. Wayne State placed 10th in 2007 and sixth last year.

Ashley St. Andrew (Grand Rapids, Mich./Jenison) won both the 500 and 1000 freestyles while finishing second in the 1650 and fourth in the 200. She led a bevy of distance swimmers who accumulated 187 points, more than a third of the team's total score, in the three long freestyle events.

Courtney Roberts (Milan, Mich.) gave WSU another championship in her first year with the team, winning the 100 breaststroke and edging out UC San Diego's Kendall Bohn by .05 seconds and Clarion's Denise Simens by .08 seconds.

A combined total of 28 student-athletes (15 women, 13 men) earned All-America status, either First Team (first-eighth) or Honorable Mention (ninth-16th).

Head coach Sean Peters was chosen as the College Swim Coaches Association Coach of the Meet for both the men and women.
 
WINGATE: MEN PICK UP MORE ALL-AMERICAN HARDWARE SATURDAY; SURGING ‘DOGS PLACE SIXTH IN 2009 NCAA DIVISION II NAT’L MEET
The final day of the 2009 NCAA Division II national championship meet ended in a similar fashion for the Wingate University men’s swimming team Saturday, as the Bulldogs received additional All-American honors at the CRWC Natatorium on the campus of the University of Houston. The 2009 swimming event is part of the first-ever Division II National Championships Festival for winter sports.
 
The Wingate men jumped to sixth place on the final team leader board, as the Bulldogs finished the four-day event with 230 points. The Wingate men’s program is only four years old. Drury (Mo.) University made a late surge to win the men’s team title with 543 points. Wayne State (Mich.) University placed second with 504.5.
 
The Bulldog women finished the 2009 national competition in 32nd place with three points. Drury ran away from the pack to take the team championship with 618.5 points. Wayne State (Mich.) finished second with 453.5 points. Thirty-three women’s teams scored points at the national meet, while 28 men’s teams had at least one marker.
 
For the Wingate men, the 400 Freestyle Relay led Saturday night’s championship final with six yards remaining. Teams from Drury and Limestone finished first and second, respectively, but the Wingate quartet broke the former national meet record with a school-record time of 2:57.22. Drury posted a 2:56.63 to take the checkered flag.
 
Wingate’s 400 Freestyle Relay team includes four juniors: Mason Norman (Duluth, Ga.), Gus Chagas (Recife, Brazil), Kyle Corcoran (Kent, Wash.) and Daniel De Francisco (Cali, Colombia). The Bulldog foursome will receive All-American recognition for their outstanding performance Saturday night. Senior Ben Schoenbachler (Monroe, Ga.) swam in the 400 Freestyle Relay preliminaries Saturday morning, helping the team post a time of 2:59.32.
 
Individually, Norman and Chagas both finished in the top six in the 100 Freestyle. Norman was fourth with a school-record time of 43.88, while Chagas placed sixth with a time of 44.20. A familiar Bulldog foe won the 100 Freestyle gold medal, as UC San Diego Dan Perdew touched first with a meet record time of 43.30. In 2008, Perdew edged Norman by 0.04 of a second to take the national title in the men’s 50 Freestyle competition.
 
Corcoran added an honorable mention All-American recognition to his portfolio Saturday, as he finished 13th in the 200 Breaststroke with a school-record time of 2:04.75. Bulldog freshman Lee Sousa (Cornelius, N.C.) completed a solid first year with the blue-and-gold by placing 19th in the 200 Backstroke with a time of 1:52.62.
 
The Wingate women did not pick up any points Saturday, but the Bulldogs continued to match their male counterparts by re-writing the school’s record book. In the 400 Freestyle Relay, the Wingate team of junior Lara Golesorkhi (Stuttgart, Germany), sophomores Nicole Moody (Grovetown, Ga.) and Cheryl Vaccaro (Charlotte, N.C.) and freshman Sarah Lawless (Holland, Mich.) finished 17th with a school-record time of 3:32.28. The Bulldogs missed qualifying for the championship final by less than one second.
 
In individual races, Vaccaro earned a personal-best by finishing the 200 Breaststroke with a time of 2:22.46. The performance earned Vaccaro a 20th place finish. Lawless swam a 53.71 in the 100 Freestyle to finish 52nd in the sprint event.
 
“Our performance in the (2009) national championship meet shows how valuable it is to work hard all season long,” Wingate head coach Kirk Sanocki says. “Hard work pays off in the end.”
 
The fact the Bulldogs have embraced his philosophies is not lost on the veteran Wingate mentor. “It is hard to peak two times in one year,” Sanocki acknowledges. “We gave them (the Wingate student-athletes) a little different approach this year. In almost every event at nationals, we annihilated our old school records. (Assistant coach) Dan Kesler and I are obviously very pleased with our performances on both sides.”
 
The top 10 finish for the Wingate men is the first top 10 placing in the program’s brief four-year history. “Our men broke three national records this week,” Sanocki notes. “This is a testament to their hard work…they have been able to make so much progress in a short amount of time.”
 
Both the Wingate men’s and women’s team swam lights out all week, Sanocki adds. “Of course, our sport is measured by the clock,” Sanocki says. “Even though we did not win a national championship this week, we were competing with some of the greatest swimmers in NCAA Division II history.”
 
Sanocki believes the team spirit in Houston was a very big factor in Wingate’s record-setting week. “Excitement is contagious,” Sanocki asserts. “Each one of our student-athletes caught the bug this week. The (men’s) relay teams certainly raised the excitement level to new heights (for us).”
 
Stephanie Reinshuttle Cofer joined the Bulldogs in Houston for today’s competition. Reinshuttle Cofer was the first Wingate University swimmer to participate in the NCAA Division II Swimming and Diving Championships. She qualified for the 2002 NCAA event. Reinshuttle Cofer helped the Wingate women win the first of two Blue Grass Mountain Conference championships in the spring of 2004.
 
Competition from the 2009 Division II National Championships Festival March 11-14 in Houston was streamed live on-line at NCAA.com. Coverage included four days of swimming and diving competition and two days of both wrestling and track and field. Links to each day’s video coverage (and additional festival information) can be found here.
 
The 2009 event was the first winter-sports version of the popular festival format that crowns multiple champions at one location. The festival launched in Orlando in spring 2005, followed by a fall-sports version in 2006 and another spring festival in 2008.
 
The Wingate University men’s and women’s swimming teams qualified 13 student-athletes for the 2009 NCAA Division II national championships. The swimming venue for the winter sports festival was provided by the University of Houston