Wheeling, W. Va. - After a change in the schedule this week, the Wheeling University Men's and Women's Swimming teams are back in action on Friday as they make the trip to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. They will compete in tri-meet action as they battle Chatham University and Bethany College at 5 PM. The Cardinals look to continue their recent roll of success going and rack up more first place finishes throughout their different events.
The Cardinals are coming off a strong swim on Saturday as they hosted West Virginia Tech in their first official home meet of the 2023-2024 season. It was a split day as the Women defeated the Golden Bears 121-43 while the men dropped their meet 132-66. On the women's side, the Cardinals won every race they competed in, bringing their weekend gold medal total to 19 gold medals between two different events. On the men's side, even though the Cardinals took the loss, they were able to take away four gold medal finishes on the afternoon. Both teams are off to a strong start, with the women sitting at 4-1 and the men sitting at 3-2, and they look to continue that success as they move through the season.
The women were led by junior Jade Miller, who was named the MEC's Female Swimmer of the Week after winning all seven events that she competed in, five individual and two relay races. She started her weekend off with four first place finishes at the Washington & Jefferson tri-meet, winning three individual events and one relay race. She would win the 100-Yard Butterfly (1:02.41), 100-Yard Breaststroke (1:11.18), and the 100-Yard Individual Medley (1:04.12) before finishing the day as the second leg of the 200-Yard Medley Relay where the team swam a 1:58.31 to claim the title. She followed that up on Saturday with a relay win in the 400-Yard Medley Relay, while adding wins in the 1000-Yard Freestyle (11:58.41) and the 400-Yard Individual Medley (5:04.24). All of this success came in Miller's non-primary events and she looks to continue leading the Wheeling swim team throughout the season.
On the men's side, the team continues to make history as they earned their first tri-meet sweep since October 25th, 2014. Leading the way throughout the weekend was graduate student Jiwh Santos, who would win six gold medals, four individual and two relays. His biggest day came in the weekend opener when he finished with four first place finishes, three individual and one relay event. He would pick up wins in the 50-Yard Backstroke (25.53), 50-Yard Freestyle (22.64), and the 100-Yard Individual Medley (55.70) as he got his work in the short-yardage game. On Saturday, he went into the longer distance events, winning the 200-Yard Backstroke (2:05.09) and was part of the winning 400-Yard Relay team that swam a 3:25.21. Santos has been the leader on the men's side throughout the season and continues to look to lower his times as he moves through the season.
Heading into Friday night's meet, the Cardinals are in the home stretch towards the midseason meet, hosted by Malone University. They have two more tri-meets on the schedule before that midseason event, with one of those coming in MEC play. Over their final two meets, the Cardinals are looking to continue lowering their times in the pool as they prepare to face off against the best in both the MEC and the Great Midwest Athletic Conference (G-MAC). With several first place finishes during the past weekend, the Cardinals look to continue racking up their wins and build momentum towards that midseason meet.

The Matchups

Chatham: The Cardinals and Cougars will be meeting for the first time in program history on Friday night at the tri-meet. The Cougars have swam in one meet so far in the 2023-02024 as they took on Hiram College back on October 14th. The women fell to the Cougar 130.5-128.5 while the men also fell to Hiram 190-45. The Cardinals will look to open the all-time series with a pair of wins as they compete in Friday's tri-meet.

Bethany: The Cardinals and Bison are meeting for the fourth time in program history on Friday, with the Women's Swimming team leading the all-time series at 4-0 while the men's teams have split their four previous matchups at 2-2. This will be the second neutral site matchup between the two teams with the women going 1-0 in those previous neutral site matches and the men going 0-1 in the previous neutral site matches. Their last meeting came inside the Alma Grace McDonough Center with the women winning 116-36 and the men winning 65-43. Gabby Baiano led the way for the Cardinals, breaking the pool record in the 1650 Freestyle with a time of 18:21.64. On the men's side, Nathan Yost and Ethan Banks each picking up multiple wins.

The Details

Friday's tri-meet will be hosted by Chatham University at the Sigo Falk Natatorium on the campus of Chatham University. Follow along with Wheeling Athletics for a full recap of the day's events.