GAMBIER, Ohio -- The Kenyon College men's swimming and diving team picked up right where it left off on Thursday by winning Friday's first two finals and four of eight overall events. With two days down and one to go in the Total Performance Swim Camps Invitational, the Owls extended their lead to 225 points to maintain their advantage over the seven other squads.
Kenyon leads the way with 1240.5 points through 13 events. West Chester University, an NCAA Division II program, closed the gap on DIII Carnegie Mellon University, but CMU still leads WCU 1015.5-1010.5 as the teams vie for podium position.
Yurii Kosian kicked off the day by setting a pool and meet record in the prelims, taking the top time in the 100-yard backstroke. He clocked in at 47.28, besting the 47.48-second Steen Aquatic Center record tallied by Kenyon's David Fitch in 2020 and the 48.46 TPSC record set by a University of Pennsylvania swimmer in 2016. The time also cleared the NCAA 'B' cut threshold of 49.48 and is the season's top Division III. Despite swimming a few ticks slower than his prelim time, the senior continued his strong showing with a pair of first-place finishes, topping the 100 backstroke final in 47.40 after swimming leadoff for Kenyon's winning 200-yard medley relay team.
Fellow senior Marko Krtinic was also responsible for a pair of gold-medal showings, joining Kosian on Kenyon's 200 medley relay squad and winning the 100-yard butterfly in the next race. The Owls quartet of Kosian, Mirjavohir Marvarov, Krtinic, and Djordje Dragojlovic won the opening relay with a time of 1:27.93, good for a 'B' cut. Krtinic kept it rolling in the following event, coming in at 47.17 in the 100 butterfly. His time cleared second place by nearly two seconds, cleared the 48.76 'B' cut threshold, and is the top DIII showing this season.
Case and WCU swimmers topped the next event, the 400-yard individual medley, but Ethan Manske (3:56.43) and Noah Hargrove (3:56.96) finished third and fourth, respectively, coming in under the 3:59.21 'B' cut threshold.
After opening the evening with two wins in two tries, the Owls' dry spell reached three in a row as WCU won the 200-yard freestyle and accounted for four of the top five finishes, and Carnegie Mellon took the top two spots in the 100-yard breaststroke. CMU added a second straight win in the night's final event, the 800-yard freestyle relay. The Tartans clocked in at 6:36.90, while the Kenyon team of Kosian, Hargrove, Teo Jaworski, and Pedro Mello placed second with a time of 6:41.44, good for another 'B' cut.
Though the competition in the pool was over for the day, the Owls were bolstered by the results of the technical last event in the lineup, the three-meter diving competition. Kenyon's Israel Zavaleta claimed the crown from the highest board, topping the three-diver field. Zavaleta was awarded a score of 666.10, which is higher than the current NCAA record of 645.70 and easily clears his own Kenyon record of 610.05, but all record-setting performance must be submitted to the NCAA for review before they become official. What is official, however, is Zavaleta's win in the event, which extended Kenyon's lead heading into the final day of the TPSC Invitational.
Preliminary swimming events will start tomorrow, November 18, at 10 a.m., while the finals are scheduled to begin at 5:30 p.m. Diving is slated for a 12:15 p.m. start.
