The Barton Community College men's swimming team brought home a first and second place finish over the weekends meet hosted by Morningside College in Sioux City, Iowa. On Friday the Cougars placed second in the Morningside Stampede scoring 85 points, second to top ranked Iowa Central Community College's 158 points. Barton captured two events and had seventeen top-five finishes in the eleven event evening meet.
Christopher Sprenger was the lone Cougar to capture an individual title on Friday taking home the 100-yard breaststroke clocking a 1:00.07 in beating out Drew Giles from Iowa Central by twenty-one hundredths of a second. Sprenger was joined by the trio of Mateusz Lukaszcyzk, Ryan Downing, and Christian Taylor earning gold in the 400-yard medley relay setting a new pool record at 3:33.50.
In Saturday's Invitational it came down to the second to last event in the 200-yard breaststroke as Barton earned four of the top eight placers with Iowa Central slipping in just two. The point differential in the event was plus twenty giving the Cougars a strong cushion going into the days' final event.
The Tritons sliced four points off the final margin as their 200-yard freestyle relay teams earned first and sixth place finishes while the Cougars wrapped up a runner-up and fourth place showing. When the waves settled Barton was atop the standing with 915 points for a 7.5-point victory to the Tritons 907.5 points.
The Cougar team piled up three golds, twenty-three top-five finishes in the fourteen event field in treading to twenty-three new personal bests while setting two new school records and two pool records in the second day of action.
Swimming to a significant role was Downing, as the Shawnee, Kansas native acquainted for three Cougar golds. Individually the freshman earned a pair clocking two personal bests in the 100-yard butterfly while setting a new school record and pool record in the 100-yard breaststroke. Downing was teamed alongside Aidan Gantenbain, Albert Kasprzyk and David Garcia as the trio swam to a new pool record 1:35.78 in the 200-yard medley relay.
Also setting a school record was Lukaszczyk in the 100 backstroke.
The Barton swimming team will return to the pool on November 21st for the three day A3 Performance Invitational held in Mesa, Colorado.
New Personal Bests
100yd backstroke: Mateusz Lukaszczyk (53.09), Clayton Brown (1:02.55)
200yd backstroke: Clayton Brown (2:20.51)
100yd breaststroke: Ryan Downing (57.78), Christopher Sprenger (1:00.07), Keeneth Ruiz (1:06.13), Leonard-Andrei Olaru (1:09.58), Cesar Robles (1:14.85)
200yd breaststroke: Cesar Robles (2:50.02)
100yd butterfly: Ryan Downing (52.40), Albert Kasprzyk (52.46), Aidan Gantenbein (53.36), Mateusz Lukaszczyk (53.84), Carlon McClerkin (54.71), Kacper Mayerberg (54.84), Nikolas Loannides (58.91)
200yd butterfly: Albert Kasprzyk (1:57.80), Kamren Hall (2:08.03)
50yd freestyle: Carlon McClerkin (22.31), Christopher Sprenger (23.36), Asa Unruh (23.63), Braden Augustine (24.30), Cesar Robles (27.14)
100yd freestyle: Carlon McClerkin (48.93), Nikolas Loannides (51.29)
200yd freestyle: David Garcia (1:52.62), Carlon McClerkin (1:53.07), Kamren Hall (1:55.26), Rory Smith (1:57.75)
500yd freestyle: Kacper Mayerberg (5:03.14), Kamren Hall (5:07.62)
1000yd freestyle: Kacper Dewsbury (10:22.31), Kamren Hall (10:29.65)
200yd IM: Aidan Gantenbein (2:03.23)