SPRINGFIELD, Ohio — The Wittenberg swimming and diving teams hosted Baldwin-Wallace and North Coast Athletic Conference opponent Oberlin in a double dual meet Saturday, sweeping both teams on the men's and women's sides to go 4-0 on the day and move to 7-2 overall for the men and 6-3 for the women in the dual meet schedule.
Highlighting the men's wins, 96-44 over Baldwin-Wallace and 99.5-40.5 over Oberlin, was the meet's last event, which featured a 3:19.26 finish for the 400 free relay team of sophomore J.B. Easley (Cincinnati, Ohio/Seven Hills), senior Zach Stewart (Vincennes, Ind./Lincoln), senior Chris Culkin (Novi, Mich./Northville) and freshman Jon Drewsen (Fond du Lac, Wisc./Fond du Lac).
Stewart and Drewsen were also a part of the men's first win of the night in the 200 medley relay, along with junior Teddy Hutchinson (Sudbury, Mass./Lincoln-Sudbury Regional) and senior Phil Bambach (Dublin, Ohio/Jerome), while Culkin followed up with a win in the 1000 free and Easley picked up a first-place finish in the 200 free with a time of 1:50.16.
Hutchinson picked up his second win of the day with a 56.26 finish in the 100 backstroke, ahead of a win for freshman Jack Ruble (Woodridge, Ill./Naperville) in the 200 butterfly. Drewsen won his third event in the 50 free thanks to a 22.36 final time, and after the diving intermission cruised to a fourth in the 100 free.
Pretty soon everyone wanted in to the "three wins club" as Hutchinson and Culkin completed hat tricks of their own in the 200 backstroke and 500 free respectively. For those counting, that amounts to 10 of 16 men's events topped by a Tiger.
The women also swept their opponents, handling Baldwin-Wallace 105-34 but just getting by Oberlin, 72-68. Their day started much the same way the men's did with a victory in the 200 medley relay. Freshman Sarah Wilson (Centennial, Colo./Arapahoe), freshman Molly Gustafson (West Hartford, Conn./Conard), sophomore Jane Tsivitse (Wyoming, Ohio/Wyoming) and sophomore Ward McNulty (Glencoe, Ill./New Trier) touched the wall in 1:53.63 to kick off the meet.
Gustafson would go on to add a first-place finish in the 100 breaststroke, Tsivitse turned in a number-one time in the 200 butterfly, and McNulty beat the field in the 50 free. Junior Victoria Parker (Columbus, Ind./North) snagged a close two-second victory over the second-place finisher from Oberlin in he 1000 free and later became the fourth Tiger with multiple firsts when she won the 500 free.
Junior Megan Tassone (Cincinnati, Ohio/Ursuline) won a neck-and-neck race with freshman teammate Claire Kozlowski (Dublin, Ohio/Jerome) in the 200 breaststroke, as the two finished within three-tenths of a second of one another, starting with Tassone at 2:31.96 and then Kozlowski at 2:32.23, an impressive one-two punch. Their photo finish rounded out the women's wins at the meet.
The Tigers have nearly two weeks off before they participate in the DePauw/Rose-Hulman Invitational on Friday, Dec. 3 and Saturday, Dec. 4. Swimming events will take place on the campus of future NCAC foe DePauw University (2011-12) in Greencastle, Ind., while the diving will run at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in Terre Haute, Ind.