Men's & Women's Swimmers Target Evansville, Cincinnati
1/11/2011 12:00:00 AM | Women's Swimming and Diving
Jan. 11, 2011
OXFORD, Ohio - On your mark ... get set ... swim! It's time for the 2011 portion of the 2010-11 Miami University men's and women's swimming schedule to begin.
The squads of Coach Dave Jennings and Pete Lindsay dive into action at 5 p.m. Wednesday afternoon (Jan. 12) at the Nixon Aquatic Center against the University of Evansville. Two days later, at 5 p.m. Friday (Jan. 14), it's a double-dual meet against arch-rival Cincinnati at UC's Keating Aquatic Center. There is no admission charge for Wednesday's home meet at the pool inside MU Recreation Center.
The RedHawk women, 5-1 in duals and ranked No. 1 in Dec. 15's CollegeSwimming.com/CSCAA Mid-Major Division I Poll (Division I schools from non-BCS conferences), are coming off a 134-71 win over Davidson on Jan. 5 in Florida.
Seniors Miranda Kaltenborn (Memphis, TN) and Megan Brunn (Mansfield, OH) led the Red and White with two individual wins apiece. Kaltenborn won the 1,000-yard freestyle by almost 20 seconds over her closest competitor with a time of 10:36.63. She went on to claim first in the 500-yard freestyle, touching the wall in 5:09.56. Brunn continued her successful season, winning her eighth and ninth individual events of the year with first place finishes in the 200-yard IM and 100-yard breaststroke with times of 2:09.28 and 1:06.42, respectively.
Sophomore Leah Thornton (Helena, AL) finished first in the 100-yard backstroke, turning in a time of 1:01.37. She also led off the winning 200-yard medley relay team that also included seniors Kelsey Vehr (Cincinnati) and Nicole Roddenbery (Peachtree City, GA) and sophomore Bekka Westrick (Fairfield). Junior Chelsey Bruington (Mission Viejo, CA) won the other event for the RedHawks, swimming 1:55.44 in the 200-yard freestyle.
"We are looking forward to getting back into competition after coming off of a great Christmas training trip in Boca Raton, Florida," said Jennings. "The team did an outstanding job in the pool and out of the pool. Evansville will be a good challenge on Wednesday and Friday's competition at Cincinnati is always a very competitive meet. It should be a lot of fun!"
Miami's men's swimmers and divers, 1-4-1 in dual meets, haven't faced any competition since the Miami Invitational in early December. The RedHawks have faced a tough schedule thus far, having swam against two Big Ten schools--Purdue and Ohio State--and versus Kenyon, Buffalo, Cleveland State and Xavier.
Miami's victory came on Oct. 23 when it defeated XU by a score of 143-114.
At the Miami Invitational from Dec. 2-4, a meet in which the RedHawks placed second, the team's top placers included: Jason Hass (Jackson, MI), who placed fifth in the 200 butterfly (1:51.87) and sixth in the 100 fly (50.61); Chris Gunnels (Chapel Hill, NC), who finished fifth in the 100 backstroke (51:45) and eighth in the 200 back (46.16); Brendan Melling (Solon), who placed fourth in the 400 IM (4:03.01); Mark Healey (Jenison, MI), who finished seventh in the 50 freestyle (21.19), plus diving standouts JIMMY BERES (Columbus), Mike Grainger (Cincinnati) and Chris Hoppler (Germantown, MD). "It has been five weeks since our last competition at the Miami Invitational," said Lindsay. "We've got eight weeks until the MAC Championships in Carbondale and just four meets remaining. The Aces bring a strong butterfly and breaststroke corps to the meet with Alex Seward, Justin Shotwell, Colin Gray consistently ranked in the Conference. It should be a competitive meet as both teams are coming off of winter training."
Wednesday's meet will be the next to last chance to see the RedHawk men at home. Miami's final home appearance will be against Ball State on Feb. 5.
--www.MURedHawks.com--
Players Mentioned
