February 10, 2006

Grove City remains 2nd entering final day

GROVE CITY, Pa. -- The Grove City College men's swimming and diving team is in is second place after the second night of the three-day Grove City College Invitational/Presidents' Athletic Conference Championships. Grove City has 599 team points and trails Westminster (634 points) by just 35 entering the final day of competition.

Grove City opened the finals Friday night by winning the 200 medley relay in a PAC-record time of 1 minute, 34.62 seconds.

The team of senior Joel Boerckel (East Moline, Ill./United Township), junior Andrew Gilbert (Berwyn, Pa./Conestoga), freshman Peter Larsen (Federal Way, Wash./Tacoma Baptist) and senior Ben Haring (Kenai, Alaska/Kenai Central) also set a new College and College Pool record and surpassed the NCAA Division III "B" qualifying standard with that time.

Gilbert also took second in the 100 breaststroke (59.35) while Boerckel placed second in the 100 backstroke (54.33) and fifth in the 400 individual medley (4:25.84).

Sophomore Caleb Courage (Shippensburg, Pa./Shippensburg) set a new pool and PAC record in winning the 200 free in 1:40.33 Friday night. That time surpasses the NCAA Division III automatic qualifying standard.

Courage, Haring, freshman Mark Barron (Coraopolis, Pa./Montour) and freshman Drew Snyder (Harmony, Pa./Seneca Valley) closed Friday's action with a second-place finish in the 800 free relay (6:59.36).

Snyder also took fourth in the 200 free (1:46.47) while Larsen and sophomore Emmanuel Butmankiewicz (Fort Lauderdale, Fla./Westminster Christian) tied for fifth in the 100 butterfly (53.50). Freshman Tim Whitbeck (Saegertown, Pa./Saegertown) placed fifth in the 100 breaststroke (1:02.83).

Sophomore Jeremy Harbaugh (South Park, Pa./South Park) took sixth in the 1000 (10:18.62) while senior Jeremiah Roberts (Butler, Pa./Knoch) took sixth in the 400 IM (4:28.28).

Saturday's preliminaries begin at 10 a.m. while the finals start at 5:30 p.m.

Friday Preliminaries        Friday Finals

Men's Standings

  1. Westminster College                 634   2. Grove City College                  599
  3. Washington & Jefferson College      416   4. St. Vincent College                 162
  5. College Misericordia                144   6. Bethany College                     142
  7. Frostburg State University          140   8. Hood College                        104
  9. Penn State - Altoona                 63  10. Penn State Behrend                   38

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