Five program records fall as Barton Swimming dominates Midland Quadrangular #GoBarton

The Barton Community College swimming program dominated the pool this past Friday in Fremont, Nebraska, as the Cougars swept the competition at the Midland University Quadrangular.

Five program records were broken during the event, two coming from the women as the Cougars defeated host Midland 100-88, Sterling College 121-58, and the University of Saint Mary 124-56. The men were even more dominant setting three new top times in defeated Midland 115-84, the University of Saint Mary 163-32, and Sterling College 163-18.

Barton will return to Nebraska for their next meet in heading to Kearney November 1-2 for the UNK Quadrangular.

Taking five golds out of the eleven events, two of the women's titles were in record breaking style by a pair of freshman. Fanny Courbot reset the 200 breaststroke by a mere .33 seconds, clocking a 2:29.49 earning title in beating out the former record holder and teammate Elizabeth Spitz in the runner-up position at 2:35.62. Courbot would also earn another gold in the 200 freestyle, beating fellow freshman Lizbeth Candanedo to the wall by three seconds in a time of 2:03.48.

Like Courbot, Candanedo would earn her gold in record breaking time, leading a Cougar 1-2 finish in the 200 fly in a 2:17.04 as Sierra Williams would also better the program's previous best by clocking a 2:27.66 for second best all-time.

McKayla Siemiller was just off her 50 freestyle record time but still was better than the field in clocking a 24.56 to win by .54 seconds with Spitz placing third in 25.78 and Sara Childs grabbing fifth in 26.92.

A rare disqualification eliminated the Cougars' 400 medley relay but left little doubt in the 400 freestyle as Candanedo, Selena Howard, Spitz, and Williams won the event by nearly five seconds with a wall touch of 3:53.93.

Other Cougars earning medal honors were Childs edging out Abigail Frye for second in the 200 backstroke with Caroline Noble placing bronze in the 1000 freestyle.

Barton finished the meet claiming three of the top-five spots in the 50 freestyle, 200 freestyle and 500 freestyle.

The Cougar men placed two or more individuals inside the top three of the nine individual events as Barton took home four individual and one relay gold.

Nikolas Ioannides was the first to win an event on the day, toughing the final wall of the 1000 freestyle in a program and pool record time of 10:00.00. Later in the day, Ioannides would again etch his name at the top of program chart in a down to the finger-nail runner-up placing in clocking a new best 4:54.32 to fall just .11 seconds behind Midland's Caleb Miller.

Aidan Gantenbein won the next gold in the following 200 freestyle in 1:49.58 leading four Cougars in the top five as Leonard-Andrei Olaru (1:54.21), Gabriel Ozanne (1:55.00) and Christian Taylor (1:55.76) took the three through five spots respectively.

Midland's Tyler Penney may have outlasted Chris Sprenger for the 200 IM title by over a second but the freshman replaced teammate Simon Botton on the top of the program list by .40 seconds in touching the wall for a new record 1:59.53. Three more Cougars followed suit in the race with the third through five spots led by Logan Overlees (2:04.37), Ergi Veli (2:05.03) and Rory Smith (2:06.58).

Albert Kasprzyk led three Cougars in the top spots of the 200 butterfly, clocking a 1:58.69 to beat out Ryan Downing's 2:00.01 and Kacper Mayerberg's 2:03.37.

A 1-2 Barton finish in the 200 backstroke was won by Mateusz Lukaszczyk, putting a second of gap between the wall at 2:00.05 and Gantenbein's runner-up time of 2:01.21.

Like their women counterparts, it was all Barton blue in the final 400 freestyle relay as the tandem of Gantenbein, Isaac Panzer, Carlon McClerkin, and David Garcia bettered the field by three seconds in a winning 3:17.39 time.