North Panhandle Times

Wheeling Swimming Heads to GMAC/MEC Championships with Eyes on Hardware\

At last year's Great Midwest Athletic Conference (GMAC)/Mountain East Conference (MEC) the Wheeling University Swimming team crowned their first conference champion since the 2016-17 season when Jade Miller won the 200 Meter Backstroke. The 2023 GMAC/MEC Championships kick off on Tuesday from the C.T. Branin Natatorium in Canton, Ohio, and the Cardinals have their eyes on more hardware heading into the big swim. They have been working towards this meet all season long and look to show what they can do swimming on the highest stage in the conference. 

It has been just under two weeks since the Cardinals last took the pool when they swam against Bethany College in their final regular season meet. It was a big day all around as pool records fell and the Men's team picked up their first dual meet victory since the program's reinstatement, and their first since January 28th, 2017, when they defeated Washington & Jefferson College. The men would end up with five wins on the day across their eight events, while the women picked up 10 wins, winning all but one of the events that they competed in. It was a big showing for the Cardinals as they ended the regular season, and they look to take that same momentum into this week-long event. 

The biggest swim of the day came from freshman Gabby Baiano, who took on the 1650 Freestyle for her first event of the day. She nearly broke the pool record the meet prior, finishing 12 seconds off the pace, and was determined to inch closer this time around. With five laps to go, she had just under three minutes left to break the record and she got it done, finishing with a time of 18:21.64. It was .60 seconds faster than the previous pool record and cemented the freshman in the Wheeling history books. The Cardinals also saw two female swimmers win multiple events, with Jade Miller and Marra Johnson each taking home first place in two events. Miller's wins came in the 50 Freestyle (26.40) and the 100-Yard Backstroke (1:01.79) while Johnson brought home wins in the 100 Yard Butterfly (1:03.85) and the 100 Yard Breaststroke (1:13.49). 

On the men's side, the team took the pool with their biggest roster since the program's reinstatement and debuted the 200 Yard Medley Relay. The team, consisting of Ethan Banks, Nathan Yost, Rua Karimazondo, and Lawula Bata, set a strong mark, picking up the win with a time of 1:55.53. Karimazondo came back a few events later and picked up his first collegiate win in the 50 Freestyle, where he swam a 24.27. The other four wins on the day were split between Yost and Banks, with Yost coming through in both the 200 Yard Freestyle (1:50.87) and the 100 Yard Freestyle (55.76) and Banks winning the 1650 Freestyle (18:26.28) and the 100 Yard Backstroke (1:03.10). 

The GMAC and the MEC will be combining for the fourth year in a row for this conference championship with the six programs from the MEC (Wheeling, Frostburg State, Fairmont State, Davis & Elkins, Notre Dame College, and West Virginia Wesleyan) combining with the three teams from the GMAC (Ashland, Findlay, and Malone). Each of the four days of competition will feature preliminaries in the morning, beginning at 10 AM, followed by the finals later that night at 6 PM. Last season, the Women had at least one swimmer participating in the final every night while the men sent a swimmer to the finals on three of the four days of competition. Wheeling looks to continue improving their times this season as they try and bring home a few more conference championships. 

Meet Details 

The 2023 GMAC/MEC Championships will be hosted at the C.T. Branin Natatorium in Canton, Ohio for the four-day event. Each day will begin with the preliminary races in the morning beginning at 10 AM, with five to seven events each day. Then, the swimmers will return to the pool at 6 PM for the finals, where the top 24 qualifying swimmers from each gender will compete in their events to see who would be crowned conference champions. 

At last year's event, the Cardinals had one individual MEC Champion when Jade Miller became the first freshman to win a conference championship since the program joined the MEC back in 2013. She won the championship in the 200-Yard Backstroke, where she swam a time of 2:09.18 and finished sixth overall and first among MEC competitors. Meredith Mandal also had a strong event, qualifying for three final events, split between the A finals and B finals. 

Original source can be found here