Emory Women Leading Heading into Final Day at NCAA DIII Swimming & Diving Championships; Men in Second

The Emory University women’s swimming and diving team remained in the driver’s seat, while the men held onto their spot in second, with three of four days now completed at the NCAA Division III Championships.

On the men’s side, the Eagles raised their point total to 222.5 points, trailing only first-place Kenyon College, which has scored 502 points.  The Eagles lead third-place Denison University by 10.5 points.

The Emory men were particularly strong in the 200-yard butterfly, as senior John Petroff was the runner-up in the 200-yard butterfly with a time of 1:48.92, marking his second second-place finish of the meet.  Senior Tom DiMarco finished third for his second individual all-America honor, and junior Mackenzie Perry earned his first with a sixth-place finish.  Earning all-America honorable mentions in the event were sophomore Bryant Jones (14^th) and junior Mark Bernstein (15^th), helping the Eagles total 51 points during the event.

Emory got its fourth all-America finish of the evening from its 800-yard freestyle relay team of DiMarco, Justin Leemis, Dustin Frissell and Bernstein, which claimed seventh with a time of 6:44.34.

Also earning an all-America honorable mention for Emory was senior Kevin Yamada, who claimed 10^th in the 100-yard breaststroke.

Meanwhile, Emory’s women brought their three-day score to 371.5 points, 25.5 points ahead of second-place Denison University.  Williams College finished the day in third-place with 297 points.

The women had a pair of all-American finishers in the 100-yard breaststroke, led by April Whitley, who finished in second place with a time of 1:03.50, after recording a mark of 1:03.13 in the preliminaries, a hundredth of a second shy of her own school record.  Sophomore Jennifer Aronoff finished third in the event with a time of 1:03.75.

In an exciting finish to the 800-yard freestyle relay, the Eagles fell just short of repeating as National Champions, finishing second with a time of 7:21.84 less than a second behind Denison University.  Emory’s team of Ruth Westby, Whitley Taylor, Katie Mroz and Liz Horvat will earn all-America honors for their efforts.

The Eagles had a pair of honorable mention finishers in the 100-yard backstroke, as Claire Pavlak finished 12^th, and Jackie Schneider claimed 14^th.

The Emory women will take aim at their third National Championship tomorrow, while the men will look for their fifth second-place finish, with the preliminaries at 11:00 AM EST and the finals at 7:00 PM, at the University of Minnesota Aquatic Center in Minneapolis, MN.