At the conclusion of the first day of the Mid-American Conference Championship, the Bobcats find themselves on the outside looking in, but luckily for Ohio, two days of competition remain.
Ohio sits near the bottom of the leaderboards, sitting in sixth out of eight teams. Akron leads all teams.
In the 200-yard relay, Ohio tied for seventh with Eastern Michigan, as the group consisting of sophomore Addison Ferguson, junior Tori Bagan, sophomore Casey Papp and sophomore Haley Clark finished with a time of 1:33.95 for the Bobcats.
Divers Kristin Capcik, a senior, and MaryRose Hillstrom, a redshirt senior, placed third and sixth, respectively, in the one-meter dive. However, Capcik projected the second-highest cumulative score in the MAC for the three-meter dive this season behind teammate junior Morgan Srail.
Senior Laurin Williams finished on the 500-yard freestyle final, giving the Bobcats’ 15 total points after recording a time of 4:51.74.
Individual medley swimmer Rachel Stearns, a senior, won first in the consolation bracket finishing with a time of 2:03.10 after failing to reach the top eight during preliminaries.
Ohio also did not have a top-eight racer during the 50-free final, as sophomore Haley Clark placed 10th out of 40 racers in the consolation bracket.
Finally, Ohio placed eighth in the 400-medley relay that saw the team drop the final event to first place Ball State.
Ohio will look to bounce back on Friday when it competes in the final heats of the 400-yard individual medley, as well as the 100-yard fly, breaststroke and backstroke events. Teams will also compete in the 200-yard freestyle finals.
Williams will look to pace the Bobcats in the long-distance event, while Ferguson will be in the driver’s seat for Ohio in the 100-yard backstroke event.
Clark is also slated to swim the 100-yard fly event. Bagan, freshman Sarah Sams and sophomore Ariel Hodges will then compete in the 100-yard breaststroke event.
Coach Derick Roe was unavailable for comment to The Post after the first day of competition.
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