Wheeling, W. Va. – After training hard all season long, the Wheeling University Women's Swimming team made the trip to Canton, Ohio for Day one of the GMAC/MEC Championships on Tuesday. They kicked the event off with a bang, having three individual top five MEC finishes and two relay top five MEC finishes on the day. Overall, four individuals swam in Tuesday night's finals while the two Cardinal relay teams made their debuts at the event.
Leading the way was Wheeling's lone MEC Champion from last year's event in sophomore
Jade Miller. She was one of three Cardinals to qualify for the finals in the 200 Individual Medley in the morning's Prelims, when she swam a 2:14.43 to qualify for the B Finals. She came back in the evening and raised her time slightly, finishing at 2:15.46. She was able to beat out Davis & Elkin's Becca Rodriguez in that B Final, and captured 2!d in the MEC, while finishing 14th overall. Joining Miller in the 200 IM finals were freshman
Marra Johnson and senior
Meredith Mandal, who each qualified for the C Final in the preliminary races. Johnson captured the team's second top 5 MEC finish taking 5th (19th overall), with a time of 2:16.69, lowering her time by .32 seconds from the morning. Mandal would finish right behind her at 6th in the MEC (21st overall) with a time of 2:17.86.
The other top five individual finisher for the Cardinals was
Gabby Baiano, who did not swim in the morning's prelims, but took on the 1000 Freestyle at the finals. Baiano has been the Cardinal's best female distance swimmer this season and came in with a seed time of 10:57.84. She had another strong swim to kick-off her first career conference championship event, and took 4th in the MEC (8th overall) with a time of 10:51.58. She beat her seed time by 6.26 seconds as she started off strong. The Cardinal relay teams each brought home top five conference finishes as well to start and end the finals. The 200 Yard Medley Relay team was up first as Miller, Johnson,
Olivia Moyer, and
Maria Jones took 4th in the MEC (7th overall) with a time of 1:54.71. The 200 Yard Freestyle Relay team of Baiano, Jones, Mandal, and
Caitlin Oltman wrapped up the day and also took 4th in the MEC (7th overall) with a time of 1:44.82).
Two other Cardinals took the pool in the morning's preliminary events when
Elizabeth Strange and
Maria Jones swam in the 50 Yard Freestyle. Leading the way was sophomore
Maria Jones, who took 34th overall with a time of 27.37 seconds. The day finished with a big PR as
Elizabeth Strange took 38th in the field. She set a new PR with a time of 30.19 seconds, beating her seed time by .45 seconds.
The Wheeling University Women's Swimming team returns for day two of the GMAC/MEC Championships on Wednesday with the prelims at 10 AM and the final at 6 PM. You can follow along with Live Results HERE or watch the meet live by clicking HERE.
