Dec. 3, 2005
Oxford, Ohio - Cleveland State put up some of its fastest times of the season on the final day of competition at the Miami Invitational on Saturday (Dec. 3) night, with sophomore Dave Duecker notching a pair of Horizon League-best swims and junior Bjorn Schantz and freshman Katie Bellew adding one of their own.
Duecker had a busy final day of the tournament, recording a league-best time in the 200 breaststroke with a 2:07.14 before cruising to a best 1:54.01 in the 200 IM. He also swam the second leg of the 200 medley relay (27.18) and anchor leg of the 400 freestyle relay (47.20).
Duecker posted three Horizon League top times in the meet, including a top time of 1:51.78 in the 200 fly on Friday (Dec. 2).
"Dave was our star of the meet," men's head coach Wally Morton. "He swam so many different events and performed at a high level in all of them."
Schantz continued his league domination of the distance events, improving on his top time in the 500 freestyle with a swim of 4:31.79. He finished the meet with three league-best times after improving on his 200 freestyle performance with a 1:39.89 yesterday and scoring a top mark in the 1,650 free with a 15:50.22 on Thursday (Dec. 1).
Senior Daniel Thomasson added an impressive showing in the 500 freestyle, topping his season-best time by almost 18 seconds and placing himself right behind Schantz in the league top times.
Senior diver Thatcher Carr picked up his second win in the tournament on the three-meter board, topping the runner-up by nearly 40 points with a score of 693.85. Carr also registered a strong win in the one-meter competition on Friday.
"We had some good swims, but we have an awful long way to go in terms of conditioning and putting all the pieces together," Morton added. "I was pleased with many of the performances. It's a grueling meet to perform at a very high level. The competition was outstanding."
On the women's side, newcomer Bellew registered her first league-best showing in the 100 butterfly with a preliminary time of 58.09.
"It was nice see Katie perform as well as she did tonight," women's head coach Mike Lehto said. "We came down to this meet looking for season best times and we did a lot of that."
Junior Marianne Lionell posted a pair of season-best marks for the women's team, scoring a 53.11 in the 100 freestyle and before topping the mark with a 52.82 lead-off leg in the 400 free relay.
Sophomore Lesley Jones tallied a personal best time in the 100 freestyle as well with a prelim time of 53.29 before joining senior Wendy Peel, Lionell and in swimming to a season-best time of 1:50.89 in the 200 medley relay.
"We had a lot of god swims and that was the goal," Lehto continued. "We might not have swam as fast as we did last year but we certainly accomplished the goals we had set out to do."
The men's team finished the meet with an eighth-place score of 791, while the women concluded the weekend in 13th with a score of 282.5.
The Vikings will have nearly a month before their next competition when they head to LaJolla, Calif. on Jan. 7 for their winter training trip.
