It was the underclassmen who were the highlight of the Patriot League Swimming and Diving Championships by picking up multiple top five finishes as the men's and women's swimming teams headed to the U.S. Naval Academy to end its season.
It was the woman's team who Thursday took home the first points for the squad. Freshman Dorothy Isaacs and senior Meghan Thiel came out with strong finishes. The freshman took second place in the 50-yard free-stroke preliminaries in her first PL championship appearance with 23.79 seconds, a time strong enough to advance her on to the finals and set a new AU record.
Advancing on to the finals, Isaacs came in second in the 50-yard freestyle with a time of 23.96 seconds, a tad behind Navy swimmer Thuy-Mi Dinh, who finished the event in 22.37 seconds.
Thiel was able to advance to the 500-yard freestyle finals after finishing in second with 4:51.87 minutes in the preliminary heat. Moving on to the finals, Thiel took on the course in 4:52.04 minutes, a time strong enough for the senior to take third.
Thursday proved to be a struggle on the men's side. Senior Dan Nagelberg was the only AU men's swimmer in the top five of his events, placing third in both the 500-yard freestyle and 200-yard individual medley.
The men's and women's teams started in fifth and seventh place respectively on Friday morning, finishing the day with a combined six individual scorers and a solid second place finish from sophomore Matt Pelletier.
Pelletier scored one of AU's highest preliminary finishes in the 100-yard backstroke, placing second with 51.90 seconds on the clock. The time was strong enough to advance the sophomore to the finals and put his name on AU's all-time top 10 list.
Pelletier soon went on to swim to another second place finish, coming in 51.27 seconds in the finals. The sophomore was only a little over two seconds behind the first place finishing time that went to Mark Kawczenski of Bucknell.
Pelletier was also seen on the men's 200-yard medley relay team. The sophomore, along with fellow Eagle swimmer sophomores Michael DiDonato and Eric Sveum and freshman Brian Galm, was able to take on a finishing time of 1:36.35 minutes, a sixth place finish.
The women's team finished out Friday's meet with strong finishes from Thiel, Issacs and freshman Mary-Margaret Lopez. Thiel took on fourth place in the 200-yard free finals with 1:52.96 minutes on the clock, while Issacs earned fourth place in the 100-yard breaststroke finals with 1:06.04 minutes. Lopez secured seventh in the 100-yard fly finals, taking on 58.91 seconds for a finishing time.
Thiel and Issacs proved strong once again in the final day of the PL championships on Saturday. Thiel was overthrown in her final competition as an Eagle swimmer. Unable to defend her three-time first place title in the 1650-yard free, the Eagle took a close second with 16:43.42 on the clock.
Issacs once again took second-place in the 50-yard free finals with another personal best of 51.61 seconds. Her time proved strong enough to move her to second on AU's all-time list.
Nagelberg scored once again for the men's side, taking hold of fourth in the 1650-yard free with a 16:05.83 personal best time.
Overall, both teams finished with solid standings. The men's team took sixth place with 265 overall points, while the women's team took seventh with an overall 275 points. Navy won the team championship for the men's side with a total of 887 points, while Colgate took hold of the championship for the women's side with a total of 723.5 points.
