Indian River is still well in control of the team championships after day two of the NJCAA Junior College National Championships in Buffalo. Though the scores are still a runaway, they are getting a little bit of a push from Daytona State College: a program that will be cut after this season.
That push includes a 4:56.02 from Daytona State’s Ginny Grams, who is the only swimmer not from IRSC to win a race at this meet.
That victory over Hall Petersohn is somewhat of an upset, though Grams conserved her energy perfectly in prelims going just a 5:13, and then dropping seventeen seconds for this victory. Petersohn was 2nd in 4:56.59.
In the men’s version of the same race, Indian River went 1-2-3 led by Bryan Clarke in 4:31.47.
Solyve Lizardi won the women’s 200 IM in 2:03.84. She won the race with very good book-end splits, including 26.75 on the butterfly and 28.21 on the freestyle anchor.
Her teammate Edwin Angjeli won the men’s 200 IM in 1:51.20, followed by his teenage teammate Alec Scott in 1:52.26.
Iowa Central’s Goran Koprivnjak took 3rd in 1:52.46 to push his team, at least temporarily, into the third-place position.
Arizona-bound South African Bradley Tandy is the star of this meet, and he got a crack at two flat-start 50 freestyles in this meet. The first came as the leadoff of the 200 free relay, where he split a 19.57. This is probably the closest Indian River will get pushed in a relay this year, as Daytona State finished 2nd in 1:19.75 – 6 seconds better than they had been this season. Yianni Thermos anchored for DSC in 19.65.
Tandy was very consistent in this session, finishing things up with a 19.51 victory in the 50 free, followed by teammate Luis Flores in 20.11 for 2nd. This entire A-Final was made up of swimmers from Indian River (four) and Daytona State (four).
The Indian River women had a slightly larger margin of victory, though they too had a good challenger. Indian River swam a 1:34.29, with the difference being made by Patricia Casellas on the third leg; that was a full second better than Daytona State’s third leg. Daytona State was 2nd in 1:35.04.
Casellas won the 50 free in 23.56 as well, as they finished 1st-through-6th in the race.