Wheeling, W. Va. - On Saturday, the Wheeling University Men's Swimming team (7-1, 3-1) dropped their first Mountain East Conference (MEC) contest of the season. Fast forward to Wednesday night and the Cardinals would earn a bounce back win as they were locked in a battle with Salem. It would come down to the final race of the night, and the Cardinals would come out on top, picking up the 103-102 win to round out the night.
The Cardinals would find themselves trailing late, and it would all come down to the 200-Yard Freestyle Relay to determine the winner. Wheeling would send out the team of Segmen Duygun, Nathan Reigel, Evan Yost, and Alberto Kofinke as the veteran group looked to bring it home. They would do just that, swimming a time of 1:30.20 to beat out Salem's A team by just under two seconds in the field. It scored the Caridnals nine key points late and was enough to lift them to the dual meet victory, picking up their seventh win of the season. It would be the second of two relay wins for the Cardinals, as they also took the title in the 400-Yard Medley Relay. The team of Aris Dimakis, Felix Norlin, Meiko Schonekes, and Nathaniel Oliveras took the pool, and the foursome would swim a time of 3:38.45 to earn a near three second victory in the field.
Leading the way for the Cardinals in the individual realm were Norlin and Duygun, who each finished with two wins on the day, with one of those coming in a relay event for each swimmer. Duygun would be the first of the two swimmers to pick up wins as he opened the individual events in the 1000 Yard Freestyle. He would win the event with a time of 10:17.52, beating out the rest of the field by just under 22 seconds. It was one of the biggest wins for the Cardinals on the day, and Duygun would round out the day with a personal best in the 100 Butterfly, where he swam a time of 54.35 to round out his day with a second place finish. Norlin would round out the individual events, picking up his win in the 200-Yard Individual Medley. He would set a new season best, swimming a time of 2:01.25 to round out the day with his first individual win of the season.
The other two individual wins for the Cardinals would come from Archie Pigott and Levi Parker, who each attacked the mid-distance events. Pigott would earn a gold medal for the third straight event, this time coming in the 100-Yard Breaststroke. Pigott would bring back the gold, swimming a time of 1:00.63 to beat out the field by 0.37 seconds. Parker would earn his first gold medal of the season, competing in the 100-Yard Backstroke, and he finished with a time of 57.17 seconds Rounding out the list of top individual performers for the Cardinals was Aris Dimakis, who picked up a pair of second place finishes along with the relay win. Dimakis would earn the second place spot in the 50-Yard Freestyle with a time of 22.41 seconds, and rounded out the day with a season-best in the 200 Individual Medley, where he swam a time of 2:02.13.
The Wheeling University Men's Swimming team returns to action on Thursday, November 20th when they compete on day one of the Malone Midseason Invitational.
