Through the first four meets of the year, the Wheeling University Men's and Women's Swimming teams have been working to lower their times in the pool. On Thursday, they will take the first big test to see how their training has gone as they compete in the three-day Oberlin College Invitational. It will be the final meet of the 2022 portion of the Cardinals schedule as they try to drop their lowest times of the year before they prepare for what's in store in the 2023 portion of their schedule.
In their last meet, both teams saw their own levels of success as they hosted Salem University in a dual meet, their second traditional dual meet of the 2022-23 season. While the men only had two swimmers competing on the day, they faired fairly well in their individual events, picking up a win as well as three bronze medal finishes on the day. While they didn't win the meet, they had a strong showing in their final tune-up with Ethan Banks and Nathan Yost each posting PRs on the day. For the women, it was not only a strong meet on the individual side, but in the team effort as well. The Cardinals would win eight of the 13 races they competed in on the evening and picked up their second straight dual win as they took down Salem 116-90.
On the women's side, sophomore Jade Miller and freshman Gabby Baiano led the field with both swimmers having big days. Miller would compete in three individual events on the day and won all three of them. She swam in the 100 Fly (1:00.58), 200 Backstroke (2:10.73), and 200 Breaststroke (2:37.67), setting PR's in both the 100 Yard Fly and 200 Yard Breaststroke. Baiano got her work in during the distance events, swimming in both the 1000 Yard and 500 Yard Freestyles and picking up a pair of victories. She finished with a time of 11:24.10 in the 1000 and added a strong 5:41.32 in the 500 Freestyle to round out her day.
The men had one individual race win on the day with junior Ethan Banks taking home the gold in the 200-Yard Freestyle, his second event of the day. Banks finished two seconds ahead of the next closest swimmer, posting a time of 2:17.79 on the day. He also picked up a pair of third place finishes on the day, setting a PR in the 100-Yard Backstroke at 1:01.18 and finishing at 2:17.79 in the 200-Yard Backstroke. Nathan Yost also swam at the event and picked up a second and two third place finishes on the day. His best showing came in the 500 Yard Freestyle where he set a new PR at 5:19.95.
The Oberlin College Invitational is a three-day event spanning Thursday, Friday, and Saturday with two sessions each day. The preliminary events will be held in the morning with the finalists advancing to the evening swim. This is the midseason meet that the Cardinals have prepared for throughout the fall and early winter and will be a springboard into the second half of the season. The Cardinals will get the chance to see some of the top competition around Division II swimming, including some of their own Mountain East Conference (MEC) opponents, across the three days. Wheeling looks to continue lowering their times as they continue to build the program.
Meet Details
The Oberlin College Invitational will span three days and eight sessions and will be hosted at the Carr Pool at Oberlin College. The preliminaries for each event will be held at 9 AM across the three days with every racer competing in their events. Then, there will be three heats featuring the top 24 swimmers from the morning as they compete in the Championships, Consolation, and Bonus Final races in the evening. The Cardinals swam at the Oberlin College invitational last year and finished ninth in both the men's and women's competitions.
The women were led by Jade Miller, who took home two first place finishes and two more top five finishes across the three-day event. Ethan Banks added strong performances across the three days of competition, with his highest finish being a 14th place finish as he competed in Pool B on the final day of competition.
The Details
Day one of the Oberlin College Invitational is scheduled for 9 AM with the preliminaries and 6 PM for the finals inside the Carr Pool on the campus of Oberlin College. You can watch the meet live by clicking HERE or follow along with Live Results by clicking HERE.
Original source can be found here.
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