NORTHWEST CONFERENCE – MEN AND WOMEN
- Dates: Thursday, February 13-Sunday, February 16, 2020
- Location: King County Aquatic Center – Federal Way, WA
- Host: Lewis & Clark
- Defending Champion: Whitworth men (2x); Whitman women (2x)
- Live Results: Available here
- Championship Central
Courtesy: Northwest Conference
FEDERAL WAY, Wash. – The Whitman women and Whitworth men have claimed NWC Championship titles at the 2020 Northwest Conference Swimming Championships at Weyerhaeuser King County Aquatic Center in Federal Way, Wash. The Pirates recorded a total of 680.5 points, while the Blues finished with the highest recorded team score since 2016 with 718.
Earning three individual titles in addition to two second-place relay finishes, Puget Sound’s Kelli Callahan earned her third Outstanding Female Swimmer of the Meet title. Owen Lempert of Whitworth was named the Outstanding Male Swimmer of the Meet with three individual victories, one relay victory, and one third-place relay finish.
Pacific Lutheran’s Claire Cranch was named women’s NWC Freshman of the Year, with Whitman’s Tanner Filion earning NWC Freshman of the Year for the men.
Whitman Head Coach Jenn Blomme earned Coach of the Year honors for the women, while Linfield’s Kyle Kimball was named Coach of the Year for the men – his first since taking lead of the program in 2014.
The finals session began with the 1650 freestyle races, with all top-three men’s finishers nabbing B-times. Linfield’s Matt Lemire took first place with a time of 15:48.82, followed by Dylan Reimers of Puget Sound’s 15:52.52 mark, and Connor Florey of Whitworth’s 15:52.76 time. Whitworth’s Cameron Lyon placed first for the women with a 17:51.79 time, followed by the Whitman duo of Sarah Davidson and Kathryn Woodburn earning marks of 18:00.81 and 18:01.68 to place second and third, respectively.
Whitworth’s Hannah Galbraith earned her second individual title of the weekend in the women’s 200 backstroke with a time of 2:04.14, with Isabel Hendryx of Whitman placing second in 2:05.97. Linfield’s Molli Hartzell rounded out the medalists in third with a 2:06.43 mark. For the men, Whitman’s Tanner Filion nabbed a 1:48.51 to take first, with William Walters of Whitworth in second with a 1:50.42, and Daisuke Fitial of Linfield with a 1:51.30 time, good for third.
In the women’s 100 freestyle, reigning NWC Championship individual champion Aspen Monkhouse of George Fox touched the wall in 52.53, surpassing Whitman’s Mara Selznick’s 52.54 mark by just a .01 difference. Puget Sound’s Calista Skog earned a 52.72 time to place third. For the men, Owen Lempert of Whitworth finished the 100 freestyle in 45.45, with Linfield’s Edan Donaldson claiming second in 45.68 and teammate Garrett Sutton swimming a 45.95 mark to take third.
Jamie Siegler swam a 2:21.58 in the women’s 200 breaststroke for the Pirates, with Whitman’s Shea Tsuha finishing in 2:24.91 to take second, and Victoria Nguyenle of Pacific Lutheran finishing third in 2:25.01. In the men’s 200 breaststroke, Whitworth freshman William Ryherd was the individual medalist with a B time of 2:03.62, followed by teammate Alexander Henderson’s second-place finish of 2:05.74, and Seth Koivisto of Pacific Lutheran’s 2:06.61 third-place time.
The Whitman women continued to rack up their points with Bella White’s first-place finish in the women’s 200 butterfly, recording a time of 2:05.91. Cameron Lyon of Whitworth came in just short of three seconds later with a 2:08.02 second-place time, followed by Pacific Lutheran’s Claire Cranch, who touched the wall in 2:08.97.
Noah Cutting of Linfield captured the men’s 200 butterfly individual title, finishing the race in 1:49.44, followed by teammate Benjamin Simpson’s 1:51.02 mark. Logan Todd of Whitworth took third in 1:52.89.
In the final events of the championship, Whitman (Felley, Tsuha, Hill, Selznick) capped off their remarkable team win by taking first-place in the women’s 400 freestyle relay with a time of 3:31.04. Puget Sound (Callahan, Haven, Brown, Skog) contributed to their fourth-place finish by taking second in the relay with a time of 3:34.32, with Whitworth (Siegler, Hoff, Lyon, Galbraith) placing third in 3:36.86.
The Linfield men (Oliveira, Sutton, Simpson, Donaldson) finished their championship efforts by taking first-place in the men’s 400 freestyle relay with a 3:02.99 time. Pacific Lutheran (Trieu, Koivisto, Mortensen, Johannessen) swam to a second-place finish in 3:06.93, with Puget Sound (Reimers, Cole, Kolb, Champagne) locking in a third-place finish with a time of 3:07.10.
Women Team Final Rankings
- Whitman College 718
- Whitworth University Swim Team 549
- Pacific Lutheran University 502
- University of Puget Sound 401
- Linfield College 345
- George Fox University 256
- Lewis & Clark College 220
- Willamette University Swimming 174
- Pacific University 102
Men Team Final Rankings
- Whitworth University Swim Team 680.5
- Linfield College 544
- Whitman College 388
- University of Puget Sound 368
- Lewis & Clark College 348.5
- Pacific Lutheran University 332
- Willamette University Swimming 281
- George Fox University 191
- Pacific University 112