UNIVERSITY CENTER, Mich. – The Saginaw Valley State University swimming and diving program hosted Davenport Saturday afternoon for senior day. Both the men's and women's teams took home the victory as the men won 191.5-105.5 and the women won 154.5-139.5.
SVSU honored 17 seniors before the meet, eight women and nine men. For the women's team, celebrated Grace Charnstrom, Kylie Clark, Lauren Cordier, Ava Frick, Emma Scott, Emily Solarski, Flora Mia Szklenar, and Lucy Wilkerson. On the men's side, they celebrated the careers of Matteo Capotosti, Gavin Crews, Zack Dollman, Logan Fox, Joao Pedro Nogueira, Sibi Raj, Josh Rottier, Eric Slabbert, and Benjamin Wainman.
The men had the top four scorers in the meet with A'lmos Szedlak putting up a big performance. He finished with three first-place finishes and one third-place. Following behind was Alvaro Rodriguez with two golds and one bronze. Wainman placed first in his two events while Slabbert had three golds and one silver to score 13 points.
The women battled in a close meet and claimed three of the top five scorers with Alexa Hieber and Samantha Fowler leading the way. They finished with 22 and 21 points for their teams as Hieber had two golds, a silver, and a bronze as Fowler had two first-place finishes and one third. Cailey Mills made the top-five tying two Panthers with 18 points as she took first in both diving events.
Top Finishes:
Szedlak and Hieber both had an NCAA DII B-cut finish. Szedlak finished the 200-yard freestyle with a mark of 1:38.52 which was 1.48 seconds ahead of the cut. Hieber secured her B-cut finish in the 1000-yard freestyle with a time of 10:23.83, just 0.68 seconds ahead of the benchmark.
There were six personal bests for SVSU with the men claiming two and the women totaling four. Lyon Hall posted a personal best performance in the 200-yard backstroke as he had a time of 1:50.96. Capotosti hit a PB in the 200-yard individual medley completing the event with a mark of 1:56.76. Hieber added a personal best to her B cut performance when she finished second in the 200-yard IM with a time of 2:10.37. Fowler won the event with a time of 2:06.97, just 1.61 seconds behind the B standard mark. Roni Markwood joined the personal best train with a time of 53.13 seconds in the 100-yard freestyle. Nina Pavlovic Cano put up a personal best as well in the 100-yard butterfly as she finished in 57.88 seconds. Jenna Schmitt rounded out the PB's with a time of 2:28.73 in the 200-yard breaststroke.
With the sweep in the final meet before the GLIAC Championships, head coach Jason Lintjer had this to say,
"I'm very excited with how our team preformed today. It was amazing to see our women get a victory over a ranked opponent. This was a huge victory for the women. It was also really nice to celebrate our 17 seniors. Everything about today was awesome."
Up Next: Saginaw Valley swimming and diving has a couple weeks off before the four-day GLIAC Championships that start on Wednesday, February 19. The meet is held at the Holland Aquatic Center in Holland, Michigan.
