MAC Championships Central | Final Results | Preliminary Results

WILKES-BARRE, Pa. – Freshman Kyle Garase (Finleyville, Pa./Ringgold) became the first Lycoming College men’s swimmer to post a sub-2:00 200-yard individual medley and he followed that by serving as a key part of the 400-yard medley relay team that broke a school record to lead the Warriors during the first day of the Middle Atlantic Conference Championships at the Wilkes-Barre Catholic Youth Center on Friday, Feb. 8.
 
Garase swam a 1:58.92 in the preliminaries to break the record of 2:01.61 by Jeff Swatkins set in 2005, helping him earn the top seed in the finals. In the finals, Garase finished third to earn his first career First Team All-MAC accolades, posting a time of 2:00.09, hitting the wall behind Albright’s Adam Vogel (1:57.43) and Stephen Thomas (1:59.37).
 
In the 400-yard medley relay, the Warriors used a blazing split of 52.38 in the butterfly from Garase to leap from fifth to third-place in the race and junior Zack Brower (East Stroudsburg, Pa./East Stroudsburg North) touched the wall in 48.48 as the anchor freestyle leg to finalize the time of 3:38.61, smashing the record of 3:40.51 set in 2003. To start the race, sophomore Daniel Woods (East Stroudsburg, Pa./East Stroudsburg North) posted a time of 55.91 in the backstroke portion before school-record holding sophomore T.J. Guminski (Ambler, Pa./Hatboro-Horsham) notched a 1:01.84 split in the breaststroke portion.
 
After the first day of the championships, the men’s swim team is third with a team score of 109 points, sitting behind Albright (265) and Misericordia (163). The women’s swim team is fifth with 81 points while Misericordia (168) leads the way.
 
The Warrior men also picked up First Team All-MAC honors with a third-place finish in the 200-yard freestyle relay, as junior C.J. Arhontakis (West Grove, Pa./Avon Grove) led off with a time of 22.28, Brower touched in 22.14, Woods added a 21.8 split before senior Nate Oropollo (Aldan, Pa./Cardinal O’Hara) flew in with a 21.24 split to give Lycoming a 1:27.46, less than one-tenth of a second behind Misericordia for second.
 
In the 50-yard freestyle, Oropollo picked up Second Team All-MAC honors, finishing tied for sixth with a  career-best time of 22.02, dropping his seed time by 0.18.
 
Freshman Josh Thomas (Fort Wayne, Ind./Concordia Lutheran) also scored points for the Warriors in the 200-yard individual medley, finishing 11^th with a season-best time of 2:04.37 and freshman Trevor Endler (East Brunswick, N.J./East Brunswick) came in 14^th with a season-best time of 2:05.22.
 
Arhontakis posted a time of 22.54 in the finals to finish 11^th and Brower posted a time of 22.64 to finish 15^th and score points for the Warriors in the 50-yard freestyle.
 
On the women’s side, the team picked up a fifth-place finish in the 400-yard medley relay to earn Second Team All-MAC honors, as the team of sophomore BethAnn Schwoyer (Williamsport, Pa./Homeschooled), freshman Jilly Flynn (Murrysville, Pa./Franklin Regional), sophomore Danielle Loiseau (Lancaster, Pa./Hempfield) and sophomore Lexi Follweiler (Coaldale, Pa./Panther Valley) posted a time of 4:10.43.
 
Three Warriors earned points for the team in the 200-yard individual medley, led by Loiseau posted a time of 2:16.76 to finish eighth, dropping more than four seconds of her season-best time. Flynn came in 10^th with a season-best time of 2:17.80 and Follweiler finished 14^th with a season-best 2:20.58.
 
Two Warriors added points in the 50-yard freestyle, as sophomore Brigid Clark (Wyndmoor, Pa./Springfield) came in 10^th in a season-best 25.72 and Schwoyer took 16^th in 16.62 after posting a season-best 26.05 in the preliminaries.
 
The Warriors also earned points with a seventh-place finish in the 200-yard freestyle relay, as the team of Schwoyer, Clark, Follweiler and senior Elisa Becker (Reston, Va./South Lakes) posted a time of 1:43.47.
 
The Warriors will pick up with the second day of the MAC Championships with 72 entries in the preliminary rounds at 9 a.m. at the Wilkes-Barre CYC. Finals will get underway at 5 p.m.