The Seattle University men’s swim team posted more personal best times as the Husky Invitational concluded Sunday at the Weyerhaeuser King County Aquatic Center.
The vast majority of the team’s top performances took place in the morning preliminary session, starting with the 200 backstroke, where Bart Wanot (Federal Way, Wash.) posted the top preliminary time of 1:52.11, followed by Lee Van Farowe (Edmonds, Wash.) with a time of 1:53.45. Sam Donohue (Portland, Ore.) earned a lifetime-best mark of 1:56.42 in the preliminaries, and followed that with a fourth place finish in the “B” final in 1:58.02.
Tanner Schelling (Boise, Idaho) also notched a lifetime best in the morning, finishing second in the 100 freestyle preliminaries with a time of 45.44 seconds. Kyle Moline (Mercer Island, Wash.) finished ninth in the morning with a mark of 47.42 seconds, followed by Van Farowe in 16th place in 47.87 seconds and Will Wertz (Richland, Wash.) in 17th place in 47.96 seconds.
Gabe Wheeler (Round Rock, Texas) finished third in the 200 breaststroke preliminaries with a time of 2:07.04, followed by Ben Nussbaum (Issaquah, Wash.) in 17th place with a time of 2:13.22. Four Redhawks placed among the top eight times in the 200 butterfly preliminaries, led by Moline in first in 1:51.51, Alec Barnard (Everett, Wash.) in third in 1:53.48, Jack Baldoni (Applegate, Calif.) in sixth in 1:55.67, and concluding with Damon Perry (Sammamish, Wash.) in eighth in 1:56.74.
The evening session started with Nick Connors (Richland, Wash.) finishing in fifth place in the 1650 freestyle with a time of 16:12.26, with Perry finishing in 30th place with a mark of 17:05.34. The Redhawks missed winning their fifth relay of the weekend by just 8/100ths of a second, as Schelling, Wertz, Barnard, and Moline combined for a second place time of 3:09.52.
“I am pleased with the performance of the team not only today, but all weekend long,” Seattle U head coach Craig Nisgor said. “I know they had a lot on their minds with finals starting tomorrow, but they were able to focus and perform well during the meet.”
Seattle University finished third in the overall team standings with 1,133 points, with the men contributing 96 points during Sunday’s competition. Over the three days, the Redhawk men collected 728 points.
The Seattle University swim teams will take their fall quarter finals and then head to Coronado, Calif., for a winter training session. The Redhawks will host back-to-back meets in early January, facing Pacific Lutheran Friday, Jan. 9, starting at 6 p.m. and Whitworth Saturday, Jan. 10, beginning at 1 p.m.