February 18, 2010

Grove City leads conference championships

GROVE CITY, Pa. -- The Grove City College men's swimming and diving squad is in first place after the first night of action at the three-day Grove City College Invitational/Presidents' Athletic Conference Championships at the James E. Longnecker Competition Pool. The Wolverines earned 299 points Thursday night and own a 95-point lead over second-place Westminster.

Grove City capped Thursday night's finals by winning the 400 medley relay in a time of 3 minutes, 26.49 seconds. Junior Cam Coppelli (Guys Mills, Pa./Saegertown), sophomore Clay Beckner (Chambersburg, Pa./Chambersburg), sophomore Ben Bowser (Stow, Ohio/Stow-Munroe Falls) and sophomore Kirk Gagliardo (Wadsworth, Ill./Warren Township) provisionally qualified for the NCAA Championships with that effort.

Bowser and Gagliardo both picked up individual victories. Bowser won the 200 individual medley in an NCAA "B" time of 1:55.16. Gagliardo provisionally qualified for the NCAA meet in the 50 free with a time of 21.12 seconds.

Senior Kyle Grubbs (Stow, Ohio/Stow-Munroe Falls) won 3-meter diving with 412.45 points.

Gagliardo, freshman Eric Fairchild (Corry, Pa./Corry), junior Nate Nielsen (Houston, Texas/Lutheran South) and junior Dan Gummel (Springfield, Ohio/Emmanuel Christian) opened Thursday's finals by taking second in the 200 free relay with a 1:25.16 clocking.

Fairchild also took second in the 50 (21.74) while Beckner finished second in the 200 IM with a time of 1:57.20. Freshman Alex Mathews (York, Pa./Spring Grove) earned runner-up in the 400 (4:43.36). Mathews finished one spot ahead of sophomore Josh Kim (Frederick, Md./New Life Christian) in the 500. Kim posted a third-place time of 4:47.82.

Coppelli placed fourth in the 200 IM (1:58.27) while Nielsen took fifth in the 500 (4:49.80). Sophomore Joe Rzempoluch (Farmingdale, N.Y./Farmingdale) took fifth on the 3-meter board with 282.75 points.

Friday's preliminaries begin at 10 a.m. The finals begin at 6 p.m.

Preliminary Results        Finals Results

Team Standings
1. Grove City College                  299   2. Westminster College                 204
3. Washington & Jefferson              152   4. Penn State Behrend                  126
5. Penn State - Altoona                 70   6. Frostburg State University           61
7. Saint Vincent College                60   8. Bethany College                      51
9. Univ. of Pitt-Bradford               50

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