A small squad of Case Western Reserve University swimmers finished competition on Saturday at the two-day Midwest Invitational, hosted by the University of Chicago in Chicago, Illinois.
The Spartan men in action totaled 398.5 points to help the team finish second, while the CWRU women combined for 311 points for a third-place finish.
For the men, freshman Kyle Barclay gathered three top-five finishes at the meet. He finished second in the 200-yard individual medley with a time of 1:57.55, second in the 400-yard individual medley with a time of 4:14.00 and fourth in the 200-yard backstroke with a time of 1:56.93. Senior Stefan Roeseler added a time of 2:00.54 in the 200-yard individual medley to finish fifth in the event. He also placed fifth in the 200-yard breaststroke with a time of 2:30.04.
Freshmen Jakob Woerner and Jonathan Liu each totaled two top-five finishes in their respective events during the invite. Woerner finished third in the 100-yard butterfly (52.07) and third in the 200-yard butterfly (1:55.10), while Liu placed fifth in the 100-yard breaststroke (1:00.38) and fourth in the 200-yard breaststroke (2:12.91).
Barclay and Roeseler also teamed with sophomore Eli Rose and freshman Elad Fraiman in the 400-yard medley relay to finish third in the event with a time of 3:48.88, while Barclay, Roeseler and Liu teamed with freshman Nathan Callithen in the 200-yard freestyle relay to finish fourth with a time of 1:31.12.
For the women, junior Suhan Mestha claimed the title in the 50-yard freestyle with a NCAA 'B' cut time of 23.56, while freshman Caitlyn VonFeldt added a fifth-place finish in the event with a time of 24.64. Mestha and Vonfeldt also teamed with senior Inez Moore and junior Alli Drohosky in the 200-yard medley relay to finish first in the event with a NCAA 'B' cut and new school-record time of 1:45.07. That time bests the previous school-record of 1:46.06 set at the 2017 Wooster Invitational.
Freshman Olivia Love also gathered two top-five finishers during the invite, placing second in the 100-yard backstroke (1:00.52) and fifth in the 200-yard backstroke (2:13.22). Junior Renee Decker also added a fifth-place finish in the 100-yard freestyle (55.33), while junior Karine Zeidan finished fifth in the 1,650-yard freestyle (18:55.95).
Love and Decker also teamed with senior Abigail Dessart and sophomore Becca Segel in the 400-yard freestyle relay to finish third in the event with a time of 3:49.45.
Case Western Reserve will now turn their attention towards the NCAA Division III Championships. Swimming selection to the NCAA Championships are slated to be released on Wednesday, February 28th at 10:00 a.m., while NCAA Diving Regionals are scheduled for Friday, March 2nd and Saturday March 3rd.
