Swim and Dive Continues Strong Showing at NCAC Meet

M/W Swim and Dive
Photo by John Coffman

GRANVILLE, OH - Wittenberg's men's and women's swimming and diving teams entered the second day of the North Coast Athletic Conference (NCAC) Championships with some momentum after a good start on Day 1, and the Tigers were able to follow that up with more good results on a busy second day of swimming. At the conclusion of Day 2, the women's team is in sixth place with 228.5 points, and the men are ninth with 156 points. For the women, the top three as it stands are Kenyon (721), Denison (685) and DePauw (387), while the top three for the men are Denison (716), Kenyon (565) and Wabash (416).

In the two relays of the day, the women took fifth in the 400-yard medley relay, where the team of Lilly Cook (Rensselaer, IN / Rensselaer Central), Sophie Paskiet (Toledo, OH / St. Ursula), Teagan O'Connor (Fort Wayne, IN / Carroll) and Shania Stone (Cincinnati, OH / Princeton) clocked a time of 4:00.98, improving on their seed time by almost four seconds. In the men's 400-yard medley relay, the team of Owen Gabel (New Bremen, OH / New Bremen), Tre Wynn (Columbus, OH / New Albany), Aidan Dannenfelser (Cincinnati, OH / St. Xavier) and Nathan Rabun (Marion, OH / Wynford) took ninth with a time of 3:57.26.

The women had many strong finishes in the individual events throughout the day. To start the day, in the 500-yard freestyle, McKenna Clark (Waynesville, OH / Carroll) finished 18th with a time of 5:28.18, Annie Gammon (Cincinnati, OH / Cincinnati Country Day) finished in 21st at 5:42.16 and Addy Payne (Sidney, OH / Sydney) took 23rd with a time of 5:44.39. They scored 12, 7, and 5 points, respectively. Next, in the 200-yard IM, Paskiet gained 17 points by finishing 13th with a time of 2:14.93 while Jenna Hallett (Delta, OH / Delta) added 6 more points, finishing in 22nd at 2:36.59, which were both faster than their seed times. In the 50 yard freestyle, Stone took 16th and added 14 points, finishing with a time of 24.76 and Cook took 22nd and added another 5.5 points by clocking a time of 25.52, which is faster than her seed time. 

For the men, Mason Steen (Leroy, OH / Riverside) took 24th in the 500-yard freestyle with a time of 5:03.92, Ethan Towle (Centerville, OH / Centerville) finished 25th in 5:14.13, which is over five seconds faster than his seed time, and Andrew Tackett (Cuyahoga Falls, OH / St. Vincent-St. Mary) took 26th with a time of 5:54.10. Later, Wynn took 27th in the 200-yard IM with a time of 2:21.46 to improve on his seed time by over a second.

The teams will return to action again tomorrow and Saturday in Granville to finish out the 2025 NCAC Swimming and Diving Championships at Denison.