All four Ohio seniors had only seen sixth-place finishes at the Mid-American Conference Championships prior to this past weekend.
This year, the Bobcats saw slight improvement as the underclassmen stepped up to help Ohio finish in fifth-place in Oxford.
Carrie Dukes was the top performing senior and the only one to pick up a top-16 finish as she came in 14th in the 100-yard butterfly.
Ohio was in fifth-place for the majority of the meet but almost repeated in sixth-place as it only beat Bowling Green State by 10 points. The Bobcats finished with 304 points.
Sophomore Corrin Van Lanen garnered All-MAC First Team honors for the second year in a row. She had three top-four finishes.
In the 50-yard freestyle, Van Lanen came in second which beat her preliminary score by 0.02 seconds. Her other second-place finish was in the 100-yard butterfly. The final top-four finish for Van Lanen was her fourth-place finish in the 100-yard freestyle, another time that is in second-place in Ohio’s record book.
The second-best finish for a Bobcat was a third-place finish in the 400-yard Individual Medley by Mikayla Herich, a freshman. Herich added a seventh-place finish in the 200 Individual Medley, which is a seventh-best all-time for Ohio, and she was on four of Ohio’s five relays.
The top-eight in preliminaries qualify for the ‘A’ finals, and Emily Zimcosky just missed out by placing ninth in the 100-yard freestyle. But Zimcosky finished ninth overall after winning the consolation final with a time that is sixth in Ohio’s record books.
Zimcosky, named All-MAC Second Team, picked up a fifth-place finish in the 500-yard freestyle. In the 200-yard freestyle, she added a fifth-place finish.
In the 200-yard butterfly, which was arguably the best race for the Bobcats, they had three swimmers finish in the top 11, winning the ‘B’ finals. Annie Gosselin won the race to finish in ninth and was followed by Elena Patz in 10th. Emily Davis rounded out the sweep of the consolation finals with an 11th-place finish.
Emilia Lahtinen was the fourth Bobcat and third freshman to race in an ‘A’ final, finishing seventh in the 200-yard backstroke. Lahtinen added an 11th-place in the 100-yard breaststroke in the ‘B’ finals.
All five of Ohio’s relay teams finished in the top eight, as each team was given one spot in the finals. The best finish was fourth-place in the 800-yard freestyle. It placed fourth in Ohio’s record books.
The 400-yard freestyle time went to third in Ohio’s record books, even though the relay only finished in fifth at the MAC Championships.
