Buckhannon, W. Va. - The first tri-meet of the year kicked off for the Wheeling University Men's Swimming team on Saturday as they took on Frostburg State and West Virginia Wesleyan. The Cardinals would split the day, beating West Virginia Wesleyan 171-31 and falling to Frostburg State 151-97. It was a historic day for one of the newest Cardinals as he led his team in their Mountain East Conference (MEC) opening event.
The big day came courtesy of Euan MacLeod, who placed himself in Cardinal history with two top 10 finishes all time. His biggest performance of the day came in the eighth event as he swam in the Men's 100-Yard Backstroke. He would end up winning the event with a time of 53.22, placing himself 7th in Cardinal's Men's Swimming history. In his second event of the day, MacLeod would make history again, taking his second first place finish in the 100-Yard Butterfly. He finished with the 10th fastest time in program history in that event, swimming a time of 52.79 to beat out Frostburg's Dylan King by two seconds. He would get his final first place finish came in the 50-Yard Freestyle, where he took the top spot at 22.18 rounding out a strong day in the pool.
The Cardinal's success started right away with the 1000-Yard Freestyle when Sarp Killic took a second place finish at 10:56.92. In the men's 200-Yard Freestyle, Nathan Reigel would swim in his first individual event and took third at 1:55.74. It was another third place finish for the Cardinals three events late when Gustav Lofqvist took third in the 100-Yard Breaststroke (1:05.29) and Nate Yost got on the board with a fourth place finish in the 200-Yard Fly (2:19.38). Avrid Hoglund would end the event strong, starting with the 100-Yard Freestyle, where he took second at 49.74. He followed that up with a third place finish in the 200-Yard Breaststroke (2:25.22) and a third place finish in the 200-Yard Individual Medley (2:09.23). Sarp and Evan Yost rounded out the individual events, with Sarp taking second in the 500-Yard Freestyle (5:12.18) and Yost earning second in the 200-Yard Backstroke (2:09.75).
The final two races of the day came in the relay events, with the Cardinals picking up two more first place finishes. The first relay was the 200-Yard Medley Relay team of Evan Yost, MacLeod, Avrid Hoglund, and Killic as they won the event with a time of 1:39.14. The final race of the day was the 200-Yard Freestyle Relay, with Killic, Alberto Kofinke, Lofqvist, Patrick Kirby taking the top spot at 1:29.64.
The Wheeling University Men's Swimming team returns to action on Wednesday, October 16th, when they take on Washington & Jefferson and Salem with first swims at 3 PM.
