The men and women’s swimming team placed second and third respectively at the Cavalier Invitational this past weekend. It wasn’t how high the team placed that mattered though, it was the chance the team got to qualify swimmers for Nationals.Kenny McCormick was the first on the men’s side to qualify for Nationals with his second place finish in the 200-yard individual medley. The other member of the team that earned a trip to Nationals was Max Bernardes with his time in the 500 free.
On Friday night, Bernardes continued his success by hitting two more qualifying times. One of them was in the individual 400 medley, where he placed third overall. The other one was the 800-yard freestyle relay team that he was a part of, along with McCormick, Tommy Rhoades and Brendan Fanslau.
Saturday brought with it two more National qualifying times for the men’s swimming team. Bernardes qualified for his fourth event of the meet, with a fifth place finish in the 1650-yard freestyle. They also qualified their second relay team in the final event of the Invitational, with the 400 free relay team, made up of Fanslau, Rhoades, McCormick, and Pauley.
The men scored 685 points in the weekend, second to host Virginia University.
The women’s team dominated competition over the weekend, qualifying six individuals for Nationals and all five of their relay teams.
Jackie Borkowski continued her success from last year in the pool by qualifying for three events and swimming with all five of the qualifying relay teams. Individually, Borkowski qualified in the 100-yard freestyle, 100 backstroke, and the 50 free.
Erin Fischer qualified in two events with the 200 butterfly and 100 fly. Danielle Ierley rounded out the individual qualifiers Saturday with her qualifying time in the 1650 free.
The members of the 400 free relay team who qualified along with Borkowski were Kristen Montello, Megan Bauer, and Ierley. That same combination teamed up to qualify in the 800 free relay as well. In the 200 medley relay and 400 medley relay, Borkowski, Rachel Gale, Fischer and Montello were the qualifying team. Leah Varvaro, Jillian Murphy, and Bauer teamed up with Borkowski to qualify for the fifth relay time in the 200 free relay.
The women ended the weekend with 472 points, third to Virginia and Kansas.
The men and women’s swimming and diving teams are off for the holidays until entering in a tri meet Jan. 15 and 16 in Trenton, New Jersey.
Ryan Frisco is a third-year student majoring in Communication studies. He can be reached at RF648257@wcupa.edu.