Feb. 22, 2012
Contact: Tim Ertle
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Brown Deer, Wis. - The Cleveland State men's swimming and diving team set the bar high on Wednesday (Feb. 22), taking three of four events on the opening day of the four-day Horizon League Championships in Brown Deer, Wis. to finish the day in second place.
The Vikings are three points behind host Milwaukee who finished with 152 points. UIC is third with 125 points, 15 ahead of Green Bay. Wright State is fifth with 91 points and Valparaiso rounded out the field with 53 points.
Josh Gonzalez had the top score in the 3-meter diving event prelims with a 342.65, more than 16 points ahead of Green Bay's Daniel Pogue. That set the scene for what would be a successful opening day for the Vikings.
When the finals began, the Viking men picked up 40 points right off the bat when the quartet of Justin Hill, Alex Lewis, Berry Thompson and Alasdair Shillito won the 200 free relay with a time of 1:20.53 - a time which was just a little over a second off the league-best time of 1:19.36 that Cleveland State recorded at the 2011 league meet.
"That was some of the best swimming in the history of the school," head coach Wally Morton said. "Our swimmers just came out on fire. It's something to build on and we still have a lot more swimming left to go so we'll pace ourselves - but that was extremely encouraging."
Three swimmers in the event swam a split under 20 seconds, and two of them were Vikings: Lewis (19.99) and Thompson (19.48). Milwaukee placed second in the event and was anchored by Nathan Welchlin who was clocked at 19.88
After the CSU team victory, Graham Thoresen, Pieter Ritz and Alex Cohara all scored in the 1,000 free.
Wright State's Pawel Grzebala won the event with a 9:17.87 and UIC's Zach Van Swol (9:28.05) and Milwaukee's Kenneth Stelpflug (9:30.03) rounded out the top-three.
Thoresen placed fourth with a 9:30.18 while Ritz took eighth with a 9:35.16 and Cohara finished 10th with a time of 9:38.25. The times turned in by both Thoresen and Cohara were their personal season-bests while Ritz's time was just shy of the 9:34.11 he swam in his final home meet against UIC on Feb. 4.
Gonzalez came back in the evening and won the 3-meter diving event with a score of 353.75 in the finals, coming from behind to edge Pogue's 352.20. The CSU senior won the event in his first year at Cleveland State in 2010 and now has two titles in three tries on the 3-meter board.
What made Gonzalez's victory more impressive was the fact that he got lost during warm-ups and suffered some physical and mental harm. Nonetheless, he shook off the cobwebs and found a way to get it done.
"I've seen divers that get lost on backs or reversals and it takes them days or weeks to recover, and Josh bounced back in a matter of minutes," diving coach Rich Karban said. "He came out and didn't do as well as he would have liked in his first dive and he dug himself into a bit of a hole, but he regained his composure and went about his business.
"It wasn't easy because this was the best contest I've seen since I started coaching in the Horizon League. We had four guys who scored over 320 points, and those scores would have won in recent years. I'm just so proud of Josh for the way he performed - especially given the circumstances. The hardest dives to do are the backs and reversals and he did them better than anyone."
Karban was also quick to praise the effort of senior Matt DiMasso who took eighth with a score of 247.45.
CSU concluded day one with another relay victory, taking the 200 medley relay in 1:30.18 - just .05 ahead of Milwaukee's foursome. Shillito swam first and recorded a 23.17 split. He gave way to Nathan Grant who was clocked at 25.62 before Lewis (21.58) and Hill (19.81) finished strong to hand CSU its second relay victory.
Hill was 0.33 seconds behind Milwaukee's anchor Caleb Sandvold but caught and passed him down the stretch.
"Justin swam really well for us down the stretch and that was an important win for us to take three of four events," Morton added. "It's too early to look at the team scores, but it always helps to win close races like that in a championship setting."
Swimming trials begin tomorrow at 11:30 a.m. EST with the 500 yard free. Other events scheduled for Thursday (Feb. 23) include the 200 IM, 50 free and the 400 medley relay.
Video of the finals - which are scheduled to begin at 7:30 p.m. EST - can be streamed live each day on the Horizon League Network via www.HorizonLeague.org.
