Miami University
Mid-American Conference Championships
RedHawks Complete 2nd Day of MAC Championships
3/2/2012 12:00:00 AM | Men's Swimming and Diving
March 2, 2012
OXFORD, Ohio - Due to severe weather in the area, Friday night's finals session of the Mid-American Conference Men's Swimming and Diving Championships at the Nixon Aquatic Center has been cancelled and the results of the morning's prelims will serve as timed-finals results. The qualification spot that each swimmer earned will serve as their final finish in the event and both Friday relays will be moved to Saturday.
Three-meter diving championship finals will continue as scheduled on Saturday with the consolation finals moving from Friday evening to Saturday at 2 p.m.
Senior Brendan Melling led Miami with a second-place swim as the RedHawks had 13 scoring swims on the day. Melling turned in a career-best time of 3:55.57, an improvement of more than a second from his previous best. Defending champ, Eastern Michigan senior Troy Esentan took the top spot with a time of 3:53.14. Miami junior Alex Reinhardt also earned a spot in the top eight with a personal-best time of 4:00.87.
Junior Anderson Whipp had a career-best swim in the 100-yard breaststroke to take fifth in a time of 56.02. Whipp's previous best time was 56.44, set a year ago with a fourth-place finish in the 2011 MAC Championships. The top seed in the event and event winner was Buffalo junior Josh Meints, who swam it in 54.94.
Senior captain Chris Gunnels swam continued the streak of Miami personal-bests with one of his own, touching the wall in 49.81 to qualify sixth in the 100-yard backstroke. Eastern Michigan junior Jacob Hanson, who won the event a year ago, gave the Eagles their second event-winner of the day with a time of 47.88.
Once scoring had been assigned to the finalists, Eastern Michigan still held the overall lead in the meet with 383 points, but Buffalo and Southern Illinois are right behind the Eagles with 366 and 365 points, respectively. Missouri State is in fourth with 286, followed closely by Miami with 252.
In the diving prelims, all three Miami divers qualified for the championship finals that will be held on Saturday night. Senior James Beres turned in the best performance of the day, putting up a score of 374.25, while Chris Hoppler (331.50) was fourth and Michael Grainger (327.20) was sixth.
Championship action resumes at 11 a.m. on Saturday, March 3 with prelims for the 200-yard backstroke, 100-yard freestyle, 200-yard breaststroke and 200-yard butterfly. Additionally, the 800-freestyle relay that was postponed from Friday will be held 30 minutes after the completion of the 200-yard butterfly prelims. The consolation finals of the three-meter diving will take place at 2 p.m.
The first three heats of the 1,650-yard freestyle will begin at 5 p.m. with finals for all other events, including the final heat of the mile, beginning at 7 p.m. The final change to the schedule will be 200-yard medley relay being moved to 7 p.m. to start the night session off.
--MURedHawks.com--
Players Mentioned
