By Jeremy Howard
As expected, the Marist women and Rider men have jumped out as the front-runners at the 2012 MAAC Championships. Both squads got the ball rolling with wins in the 200 freestyle relay. The women’s race featured an exciting five team race that saw surprising late moves by Iona and Loyola, that had the natatorium at its loudest of the night, to finish 2-3 and round out the podium with Marist. The men’s race played out a little more straightforward with Rider, Marist and Loyola making up the podium.
On the Men’s 1M Ian O’Rourke from Niagara stood out, winning by over 30 points while Canisius and Fairfield won from a team perspective, scoring four divers each. Cansius helped their squad by placing 4-7-13-14 and Fairfield claimed 6-9-11-12.
The 500 free field was much faster this year, showing some added depth in the MAAC. Marist teammates Kate Conard and Michelle Fountain swam stroke for stroke the entire race. In an unexpected finish Fountain, a senior, touched out her teammate for her first ever MAAC victory, 4:55.65 to 4:55.89. Conard was the defending champion and is the current conference record holder. They led four women under the five minute mark for the first time in conference history.
In the men’s 500 defending champion Brennan Morris jumped out to an early lead and continued to pull away from the field. The announcer yelled at the halfway mark that Morris was on his own conference record pace but he fell off slightly in the back half and finished in 4:27.49.
The women’s 200 IM featured a dominating effort by Marist freshman Greta Leberfinger who touched at the 100 with four other women, but dropped a 35.26 breaststroke split to build a two body-length lead. She was able to hold off late charging teammate Emily Miles for the win, and secure Marists second one-two finish of the evening.
On the men’s side Rider junior Johnny Charles-Funk led wire to wire posting the fastest splits in all disciplines to crush the conference record by 1.5 seconds in a time of 1:47.56. The swim also broke a 13-year old ECC pool record.
In a very close women’s 50 freestyle Loyola sophomore Caitlin Cronin came out victorious as she touched out two-time conference champion in the event Michelle Yoshida. In the men’s 50 Loyola junior Jeff Rowe, who was the only man under 21-seconds in preliminary action saw challengers from all around the pool, but fought them off. Rowe in the center, Peter Jimenez of St. Peters in lane 1 and John Spitzer of Marist in lane 8 sprang out to the early leads, but fueled by a super quick turn Brett Pedersen of Rider came back to place second to Rowe 20.59 to 20.80 as the only swimmers under 21.
The women’s 3M featured a lot of excitement. In the prelims only 6-points separated first and fifth. In finals action Fairfield freshman Ashlee Steinberger distanced herself from the rest, increasing that spread to 13 over her nearest competitor.
The women’s 400 Medley Relay saw another conference record fall as the Marist women lowered the mark to a 3:48.42. The biggest excitement of the race came out of the breaststroke leg as Marist freshman Grete Leberfinger and Iona senior Jamie Manser both split 1:01.2. As the championships move forward to day two it will be interesting to see how these two dual in the breaststroke events.
It will also be interesting to see how perennial standouts Conard and Yoshida respond to their day one setbacks. From a team perspective it seems that the Canisius men have positioned themselves well to place at the top of the conference. After Rider it appears to be shaping up as a three team race between Marist, Canisius and Loyola. On the women’s side Marist and Rider have strong locks on first and second, respectively with Loyola, Iona, Fairfield and Canisius battling behind.