The Navy swimming teams combined to win 16 events on their way to sweeping Towson and Johns Hopkins Wednesday evening at Lejeune Hall in Annapolis. The Navy women (9-1) recorded 10 event victories in tallying a 166.5-80.5 win over Johns Hopkins and a 135-119 triumph over Towson. Navy’s men’s squad (9-1) placed first in six events to record a 130-127 win over the Blue Jays and a 134-123 victory over the Tigers.
Towson (6-5) won the women’s meet against Johns Hopkins (7-1) by the score of 192-68, but the Blue Jays (5-3-1) defeated the Tigers (5-5), 153-109, in the men’s meet.
Towson’s men’s team placed second at the 2015 Colonial Athletic Association championship, while its women’s program won the CAA crown one year ago. Johns Hopkins is currently ranked fifth in the latest national Division III women’s poll and its men’s squad is ranked sixth.
Today’s meet was the first for the Mids since Jan. 9 as weather forced the cancelation of separate contests against Loyola and Penn State last weekend.
“With the chaos of the last few days and all of the delays,” said Navy women’s swimming head coach John Morrison, “I was real pleased with how we came out and raced on a random Wednesday afternoon. We raced extremely hard and I was real proud with how we fought the entire meet.”
“We came out okay,” said Navy men’s swimming head coach Bill Roberts. “We were hoping for just a little bit more in some of the races. We had some good swims. The guys were able to swim some events they normally do not compete in. Overall, the effort was there, guys were trying hard, we had some good racing tonight, were hoping for a little more at this point, but we will get back at it tomorrow and try to do better the next time.”
Leading Navy’s efforts on the day was Kenzie Margroum (Jr., Fort Thomas, Ky.), who totaled three individual event wins for the Mids. She first posted a time of 1:51.13 to win the 200 free, soon won the 50 free in a time of 23.59 and then touched the wall first in the 500 free with a clocking of 4:58.70. Margroum also swam the opening leg on Navy’s winning 200 freestyle team.
Teammate Lauren Barber (Fr., New Wilmington, Pa.) recorded a pair of wins during the meet. Her time of 1:03.24 gave her the victory in the 100 breast, while her clocking of 2:02.59 provided her with a three-second margin of victory in the 200 individual medley.
Maddi Thompson (Sr., Jersey Shore, Pa.) also had a strong night for the Navy women’s squad. Her evening began with her anchoring the winning 200 medley relay team and later included her winning the 100 free in a time of 51.85. Additional event winners for the Mids were Jenny Smith (So., Columbus, Ohio) in the 1000 free (10:13.54) and Rachael Dudley (Sr., Hoschton, Ga.) in the 200 butterfly (2:03.84).
Navy’s men’s squad won both relay events and had four different Mids win an individual event. Nick Pfanstiel (Fr., Fishers, Ind.) posted a time of 9:35.59 to win the 1000 free, Marlin Brutkiewicz (Jr., Mobile, Ala.) won the 100 breaststroke with a clocking of 55.32, Joseph Jaime (So., San Antonio, Texas) touched the wall first in the 50 free with his posting of 20.96 and Tom Duvall (Sr., Durham, N.H.) won the 100 free thanks his time of 46.02.
No diving events were contested during the meet.
Navy’s men’s team will close its regular season Friday by playing host to Columbia and Penn State (2 p.m.), while the Navy women’s squad will cap its regular season Saturday (noon) with the Navy Invite in Lejeune Hall. After this weekend, Navy will begin its championship slate of meets by playing host to the Patriot League Championship Feb. 17-20 in Annapolis.
“Towson has had several recent brilliant years,” said Morrison. “We were real excited about their coming over to race against us, and to be able to beat them in the middle of the week is pretty big for us. Typically this is our rest day in training, but we didn’t adjust our training for this meet and were real happy to get the results we did.”
“Tonight was pretty critical for both Friday and the upcoming championships because of the meets being cancelled last week,” said Roberts. “We definitely needed the racing tonight. But we are going to have to be a lot better on Friday to be competitive with the two teams coming in.”
