University of Maine
America East Championships
Three Quarters Through America East Championships
2/19/2011 12:00:00 AM | Men's Swimming and Diving
BOYDS, MD. – Through two days at the AEC's, the men held their slim fourth place lead with 118 points (two points up on fifth place Stony Brook) and the women managed to cut the gap on sixth place Stony Brook to five points, with 109 in total. Now that the third day has come and gone, the women still find themselves in seventh place, with the gap rising to 49 between the women and Stony Brook; while the Maine men have since surrendered their fourth place standing, and now will have to fight back in the final day to catch fourth place Stony Brook (who have built an eight point lead on the men).
Although standings wise, day three of the AEC's did not seem like much of a success... if a closer look is given, there is plenty to celebrate after today's effort. All in all, there were five school records broken today (two by the men and three by the women).
Leading the way for the Maine men with a fourth place finish in the three meter dive was Tim Smith (Bangor, Maine). After the preliminaries, Smith was in seventh out of eight place but after his final dives, Smith closed in and landed fourth place in a score of 472.90. Following Smith's effort were Andrew Meehan (Brewer, Maine) and Andrew Mackeil (Biddeford, Maine) who placed seventh and eight respectably in the 100 yard butterfly. Meehan's finals time of 50:71 set a nine year old record by Jake Jentzer (50:83). The final noteworthy event for the men came in the 400 yard Individual Medley where Jeremy Bender (St. Paul, Minn.) landed a tenth place finish in a finals time of 4:05.52; which broke the previous school record set by himself just a year prior by over two seconds.
The Maine women were lead by three top ten finishes, which happened to all be school records. The first of which being a tenth place finish by Eric Smrcina (North Falmouth, Mass.) in the 100 yard Butterfly. Smrcina posted a finals time of 57:08, which broke Meaghann Fisher's 2010 record of 57:75. The 100 yard Breaststroke was the next even that saw great success for Maine as Caitlin Shelley (Charlottesville, Va.) posted an impressive fifth place finish with a preliminary time of 1:04.48 and a finals time of 1:05.02. The preliminary time for Shelley earned her the school record, bettering teammate Jennifer Trodden's (Reading, Mass.) 2010 record of 1:05.98. The final event for The University of Maine women that saw great success was the 400 yard Medley Relay in which the team of Courtney Mellish (Barrie, Ontario), Shelley, Smrcina and Trodden combined for a finals time of 3:54.37. This time bettered the 2006 mark by nearly 3 whole seconds.
Maine men's and women's Swimming and Diving will next hit the pool tomorrow, February 20 for the final day of the America East Championships in Boyds, Md. The day's events are set to kick off at 10 a.m. with the prelims and then the championship finals at 6:00 p.m.
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