February 13, 2014

Wolverines hold lead

GROVE CITY, Pa. -- The Grove City College women's swimming and diving team holds an 11-point lead after the opening night of the College's James E. Longnecker Invitational/Presidents' Athletic Conference Championships. Thursday night, the Wolverines accumulated 242 team points in the James E. Longnecker Pool. Westminster is second with 231 points, followed by Saint Vincent in third with 170 points.

Grove City closed Thursday night's session by winning the 400 medley relay in a time of 3 minutes, 56.09 seconds. Junior Lauren Cassano (Venetia, Pa./Peters Township), senior Kaley Hess (Reamstown, Pa./Cocalico), sophomore Megan Bilko (Canonsburg, Pa./Canon-McMillan) and junior Tori Baker (Fairfax, Va./Robinson) combined for the victory.

Bilko opened the individual portion of Thursday's finals by winning the 500 in 4:58.96. She set a new conference, pool and school record in that event. Bilko also provisionally qualified for the NCAA Championships in the 500.

Cassano captured first in the 200 individual medley (2:08.70) while freshman Megan Smith (Tyler, Texas/Kolbe) earned second in the 500 with a time of 5:08.02. Baker, Cassano, freshman Molly Gallant (Severna Park, Md./Severna Park) and senior Janele Baglia (Grove City, Pa./Grove City) opened the finals by taking second place in the 200 free relay with a 1:37.13 performance.

Baker took third in the 200 individual medley (2:09.96) while Gallant claimed third in the 50 free (24.42 seconds).

In 1-meter diving, sophomore Carolyn Eckendorf (Fairview, Pa./Fairview) provisionally qualified for the NCAA Championships with a score of 422.20 points. She earned fourth overall. Freshman Grace Klimek (Oakdale, Pa./South Fayette) placed sixth with a score of 394.55 points.

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

Preliminaries Results            Finals Results

Team Standings
1. Grove City College                242   2. Westminster College               231
3. Saint Vincent College             170   4. Washington & Jefferson College    113
5. Chatham University                 82   6. Bethany College                    64
7. Penn State Behrend                 60   8. Cabrini College                    55
9. Franciscan University of Steub     43  10. Univ of Pittsburgh at Bradford     39
11.Penn State Altoona                 32

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