Nationals

We just got back from Nationals in Minneapolis! It was an awesome week for us!
Congratulations to Jenny VanEtten, Shawn Merlin, and Eric Messina - they represented us well with great performances and brought home 6 All-American Awards.
Jenny started things off for us with a school record performance in the 200 IM with a 2:08.77.
Things only got better from there.
In the 100 breast, Jenny came in with a best individual time of 1:07.17, and was seeded somewhere around 32nd. We were hoping for at least a best time, she shocked us all with a 3 second drop, clocking in at 1:04.16 and grabbing a spot in (top 8) Finals and her first All-American award! The swim was also a new conference record by almost 2 seconds.
In the 200 breast, the event that she qualified in for the National meet, she was seeded 10th. Jenny swam to a new school and conference record in the prelims, qualifying 8th to make Finals. In Finals she again lowered the school and conference record with a 2:20.29, finishing in 7th place for her second All-American performance.
For the Men, both Shawn and Eric qualified for the meet in Diving.
The first Diving event was 1 meter. Shawn finished in 7th place to earn his first All-American award of the meet. Eric just missed out on the top 8 and finished in 9th for an Honorable Mention All American award. Not that I know a lot about diving but they both looked great, and I am pretty good at guessing scores now.
The second diving event was 3 meter. Shawn finished this event in 5th place for his second All American honor, while Eric once again narrowly missed out on top 8 (by less than 2 points) and finished in 9th and picked up his second Honorable Mention All American award. On a sidenote after the first dive on both boards Eric was in first place, that will be his claim to fame until next year, when he moves up the ranks.

Highest Achievement - 2 years in a row

For the second year in a row Oswego State Swimming has a team member selected as a Chancellor's Award winner. Congratulations to Paul MacMahon for being recognized this year. The Chancellor’s Award for Student Excellence is the highest honor bestowed upon a student by the State University of New York. Last year Joe Turk was a recipient of the award.
The Women's team was once again recognized as an Academic All-American Team for the Fall 2008 semester. The College Swim Coaches Association now recognizes this each semester for team's with over a 3.0 gpa. Last year both the Men and Women were Academic All-American teams for the year.

Congrats!

So like I said earlier, we had a very good championship meet! 13 new school records! A bunch of National B cuts. Congrats to Jenny VanEtten for making it to the National Meet. Jenny attended the last chance meet at NYU where she broke 3 records with one swim - in the 200 breast she broke her own 100 breast record (106.81) and her own 200 breast record (221.28) as well as the conference record. We are still waiting to find out if our divers will make it in.