Miami University
Miami Invitational
RedHawks Open Miami Invite Thursday Evening
12/2/2010 12:00:00 AM | Women's Swimming and Diving
Dec. 2, 2010
OXFORD, Ohio - Miami men's and women's swimming and diving dove into the 17th Annual Miami Invitational Thursday evening at the Corwin Nixon Aquatic Center.
After the night's events, the men's team is in fourth place with 127 points, trailing two teams tied for second, Oakland University and University of Cincinnati, by six points. Big Ten powerhouse Ohio State University is leading the eight-team field with 177 points.
Miami had 7 swimmers who scored in the men's 1650-yard freestyle with freshman Sean Minderlein leading the RedHawks with a twelfth place finish, undercutting his seed time by eleven seconds. Minderlein's time of 16:14:89 is the second fastest time in the MAC this year. Junior Brendan Melling followed close behind, placing fifteenth.
After a close race for second place in the last leg of the 800-yard freestyle relay, Miami was touched out by Dennison University and placed third in the final event of the evening. Ohio State University placed first, over six seconds ahead of the field.
This time last year, the Miami women's swimming and diving team had a relatively slower start, waiting until the second day to post its first win on the way to a Miami Invitational win. This time around, the RedHawks wasted no time with a win in the meet's first event, the 800-yard freestyle relay.
Junior Chelsey Bruington led off the relay with a career-best time, turning in a split of 1:48.65 and putting Miami out in front. Sophomore Bekka Westrick and seniors Megan Brunn and Kelsey Vehr increased the lead to finish almost eight seconds ahead of their closest competitors with a time of 7:23.44. The time was just 27 hundredths of a second off of an NCAA Division I Championship "B" cut.
In the second and final women's event of the night, senior Miranda Kaltenborn led the RedHawks with a fourth-place finish in a time of 17:16.10. Oakland and Emory dominated the event, combining to turn in the other six of the top seven times, creating a logjam atop the standings.
After the first day of competition, Oakland leads with 131 points, just ahead of Miami with 130. Emory is in third place with 127 points.
The Miami Invitational will run for the remainder of the weekend, with preliminary swimming events at 9 a.m. and finals at 6 p.m. on Friday and Saturday. Men's and women's diving preliminaries will be at 2 p.m. and 3:30 p.m. each day and finals will be held before the final swimming relay each evening.
Tomorrow's events are as follows (relays are timed finals only in the evening session): - 200 Freestyle Relay - 200 Butterfly - 200 Freestyle - 100 Breaststroke - 100 Backstroke - 400 Individual Medley - 50 Freestyle - Women's 3-meter diving - Men's 1-meter diving - 400 Medley Relay
Players Mentioned
