The Wingate University men’s and women’s swimming teams lead the 2013 Bluegrass Mountain Conference Championships Wednesday night after solid swims in the distance events. For the seventh year in a row, the Bulldog swimming teams are hosting the BMC championships at the Mecklenburg County Aquatics Center (MCAC) pool in downtown Charlotte.
The Wingate men top the team charts with 73 points. Queens University of Charlotte is second with 68 points. The Bulldog women have 77 points; Johns Hopkins (Md.) University is second with 65 points. Twelve men’s teams and 10 women’s teams scored points Wednesday night.
Wingate senior Paige Schmidt (Clearwater, Fla.) won her fourth BMC 1000 Freestyle Wednesday, touching first with an NCAA Division II “B” cut time of 10:12.09. Bulldog redshirt freshman distance swimmer Julie Wessler (Sprockhövel, Germany) was third (10:23.85), also achieving a “B” cut.
Wessler had a busy night, as she swam the first leg for Wingate’s bronze medal 800 Freestyle Relay team (7:33.22). She was joined by junior Charlotte Cornet (Brussels, Belgium), senior Elly Speer (Manly, Sydney, Australia) and junior Katie Pheil (Ocala, Fla.). Johns Hopkins won the race with a NCAA Division III “A” cut time of 7:23.88.
The Bulldogs finished the night by winning the 800 Freestyle Relay with a time of 6:37.14. Wingate junior Marko Blazevski (Skopje, Macedonia) swam the anchor leg. He was joined by freshmen Dylon Johnson (Fletcher, N.C.) and Ossian Arvidsson (Kungälv, Sweden) and sophomore Issam Zeraidi (Brussels, Belgium).
Wingate freshman Makis Jorgensen (Helsingborg, Sweden) and senior Cole Dutton (Myrtle Beach, S.C.) finished second (9:27.50) and third (9:28.04), respectively, in the 1000 Freestyle. Both clocking are NCAA Division II “B” cuts. Queens (N.C.) sophomore Alex Menke (Fayetteville, Ga.) won the race with an “A” cut of 9:10.90.
Day two of the BMC Championships is Thursday, with the preliminaries beginning at 10 a.m. The finals are slated to start at 6 p.m.
