2011 America East Championships in the Books
2/21/2011 12:00:00 AM | Men's Swimming and Diving
BOYDS, MD. – Coming in to the final day of the American East Championships, the Maine women remained in seventh place, with the gap set at 49 between themselves and Stony Brook; and unfortunately could not close the gap as they ended their season in seventh place, with 237 total points (63 behind sixth place, Stony Brook). The Maine men entered the final day in fifth, after surrendering their previous fourth place standing to a Stony Brook team that then held a slim eight-point advantage. After an amazingly successful effort, the men were able to overtake Stony Brook, and found themselves in fourth place in the final standings. This was the first time since 2006 that the Maine men did not place last in the Championship.
The final day saw eight top-ten finishes for Maine: five for the women and three for the men. Setting the table for the men, in the 1650 freestyle were Yuri Chornobil (Rochester, N.Y.), and Jeremy Bender (St. Paul, Minn.) who finished in seventh and eighth respectively. Chornobil turned in a final time of 16:13.49 while Bender turned in a final time of 16:19.19.
The final noteworthy finish for the men belonged to Brian Landry (Yorktown, Va.) who finished the 200 breaststroke in a preliminary time of 2:10.13 and a finals times of 2:10.33.
Setting the table for the women was freshman stand-out, Kara Capossela (Greenwhich, Conn.) in the one meter dive. Capossela's preliminary score of 225.75 led to her final score of 435.70 and a fifth-place finish. Also producing for the women was Kara Dubiel (Carefree, Ariz.) in the 1650 freestyle. Dubiel found herself finishing in tenth place, with a finals time of 17:30.43.
The final two women's events both resulted in school records, as Lauren Thornbrough (San Diego, Calif.) earned herself an eighth-place finish. Her record-breaking preliminary time of 2:05.18 broke Meaghann Fisher's 2010 mark of 2:07.09. The next even for Maine, the 200 breaststroke, saw an eighth-place finish by Caitlin Shelley (Charlottesville, Va.) in a preliminary time of 2:23.09 and a finals time of 2:22.97. The record breaker for the event actually came by tenth place finisher, Jennifer Trodden (Reading, Mass.), who broke her own 2010 mark of 2:21.86 with a consolation finals time of 2:21.50. Trodden's record breaking time unfortunately could not count towards the championship final as her preliminary time of 2:24.34 was not fast enough to break the top eight.
All in all, Maine finished the Championships with nine school records broken.
This America East Championship concludes the 2011 swimming and diving season. For Maine, there is plenty to work towards in the off season as both the men and women have an abundance of returning talent ready to lead the Black Bears into the 2012 Championships.
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