BOWLING GREEN, Ky. - The Western Kentucky University men's and women's swimming and diving teams each finished in second-place as the 2011 Sun Belt Conference Swimming and Diving Championships came to a close Saturday at Rockwall Aquatics Center of Excellence in Rockwall, Texas.
The University of Denver swept both the men's and women's team titles with 1,009 points and 924.5 points, respectively. The Hilltoppers finished with 943.5 points while the Lady Toppers tallied 795 points.
"Obviously our main goal was to win both and with the men it basically came down to the last couple of events, and over a four-day competition, I couldn't be more proud of them," WKU coach Bruce Marchionda said. "On paper Denver was just supposed to win by a landslide and for us to be up by two points going into the last day and battling back and forth, I just can't say enough about the men's team and really stepping up and meeting the challenge.
"On the women's side we obviously fell short, but we had some great swims and a lot of school records."
WKU head coach Bruce Marchionda was named the Men's Swimming Coach of the Year and senior Claire Donahue earned Women's Swimmer of the Year honors for the second consecutive season.
"We got second place and I got coach of the year basically because nobody thought anybody could challenge Denver and they did it," Marchionda said. "We will regroup and our goal will be to win both next year."
Donahue capped her fourth and final conference meet with a first-place finish in the 200-yard butterfly event, touching in at 1 minute, 57.77 seconds. Donahue has won both the 100y and 200y butterfly events at the conference meet each of the last four seasons. Courtney Marx (2:06.56) and Chelsea Larsen (2:07.12) also finished in the top 16.
Lady Toppers sophomore Hilary Mishler set a new SBC meet, school and conference record in the 200y backstroke on her way to a first-place finish in the event. Mishler's time of 1:56.85 also represented an NCAA provisional qualifying mark. Alex Van Oost also finished in the top five with a time of 1:58.66.
WKU senior Claire Alexandre finished runner up in the 100y freestyle with a mark of 50.16, just four-hundredths of a second behind Denver's Rachel Burns.
Samantha Holmes was the top finisher for the Lady Toppers in the 1,650 freestyle as was Stephanie Martin in the 200y breaststroke. Holmes placed fifth with a time of 17:05.43 while Martin finished fourth with a time of 2:17.98. In the preliminaries of the 200y breast, Martin posted a time of 2:17.00, setting a new school record.
The quartet of Donahue, Kristiana Feeser, Alexandre and Meredith Dement posted a school-record time of 3:22.14 in the women's 400y freestyle relay.
In women's 3-meter diving, sophomore Caitlin Dean placed third with a score of 271.25. Margaret Stringer and Kylie Ruiz also placed in the top 10.
Hilltoppers senior Nick Slattery capped his final conference meet by setting a school record in the 200y butterfly, posting a time of 1:46.56, breaking the previous record of 1:47.73 set by Endi Babi in 2009. Adam Pendry, Neal Rushing and Ethan Arave all placed in the top 10.
The 200y backstroke event was the strongest event of the night on the men's side. The Hilltoppers tried to keep pace with the Pioneers by placing five swimmers in the top eight, led by sophomore Adam Dajka. Dajka placed third with a time of 1:46.40. David Menchinger (1:47.01) finished fourth followed by Arave (1:48.46) in fifth, Cameron Watkins (1:49.71) in seventh and Chris Housden (1:51.53) in sixth.
WKU sophomore Billy Kunkel picked up a third-place finish in the 100y freestyle, posting a 44.72 and classmate Luke Musser finished sixth in the 200y breastroke with a time of 2:01.96. Both were the top finishers in their event for the Hilltoppers.
In the 1,650y freestyle event, David Rayner led the way for WKU with a fifth-place finish, touching in at 15:51.41. Pendry (15:57.61) and Rushing (15:59.82) finished sixth and seventh, respectively.
Over the four-day meet, the two teams combined to set 18 school records, tallied 22 NCAA provisional qualifying times and one automatic qualifying time.
"Right now what we are going to do is regroup and see who makes the NCAA meet and prepare them to do that so that Western Kentucky gets the name out and gets national recognition," Marchionda said."
Next competition for both teams will be the NCAA Zone Diving Meet in early March at a predetermined campus site.
