Women's Swimming & Diving wins third consecutive OAC Championships title

By:Tim Glon

AKRON — The Ohio Northern women's swimming and diving team won the 2011 Ohio Athletic Conference championships Saturday night at the University of Akron's Ocasek Natatorium.

The Polar Bears won their third consecutive title and their fourth crown in the past five years.

Northern finished the three-day meet with 308 points. Mount Union was second with 205, John Carroll was third with 140, Baldwin-Wallace was fourth with 131 and Wilmington was fifth with 62.

ONU won four of the seven events on Saturday night and 11 of the 20 events in the championships overall.

The Polar Bears also set seven OAC records and 10 ONU records during the meet.

Head coach Peggy Ewald and assistant coaches Jessica Ewald and Sami Phillips were named the OAC Women's Coaching Staff of the Year.

On Saturday, freshman Kasey Manko broke the OAC and ONU records in the 200 breast by more than a second, winning the event in 2:24.39.

Senior two-time OAC Champion (2008, 09) and now four-time All-OAC honoree Hannah Bukowy was second in 2:26.79.

Freshman Lindsey Rayhill set OAC and ONU records by winning the 200 fly in 2:09.23, giving her a sweep of the fly events in the championships.

Junior Michelle Eggers three-peated as 1,650 free champion, edging sophomore teammate Mackenzie Hoffman in the closest race in the event in OAC history.

"This was a great meet," Ewald said. "Our team worked very hard for this championship. We fought through quite a bit of adversity and had many, many outstanding performances. The OAC has gotten faster across the board and that's a good thing. I am very proud of our team this weekend."

Eggers won her third straight title by touching in 18:22.54, just .28 of a second ahead of Hoffman's 18:22.82.

The pair were more than 11 seconds ahead of the field.

Junior Kaitlyn Early won the 100 free in an OAC record-tying :53.50.

Senior Lacey Shumate earned All-Conference honors in the 200 back for the fourth time in her career and broke her own school record to boot.

She finished third in 2:10.71, shaving .24 of a second off of her pervious record time of 2:10.95 set in 2007.

Shumate won the OAC crown in the event in 2007 and 2008 and was second in 2009.

Freshman Lizzy Aiello and sophomore Amy Elmer earned All-OAC honors in the 3-meter diving event.

Aiello finished second with 343.60 points and Elmer was third with 338.60 points.

Fiffick, Hoffman, Garbash and Early earned All-OAC kudos by finishing second in the 400 free relay in a school record time of 3:38.10.

The Polar Bears will now wait until the NCAA Championships selections are announced to see if any swimmers will be competing at the national championships.