CAA Swim Championships Provided A Great Night!

Thursday was a great day to be a Towson Tiger! I had the pleasure of attending the second day of competition at the CAA Swimming and Diving Championships at George Mason's Jim McKay Natatorium. What a day it was!

You can check out the results elsewhere and see that Towson had a pair of individual champions. In the first championship heat of the day, Tiger senior Liz Lebherz grew stronger as the race went on and swam away from the pack to set a CAA record with a time of 4:53.66 in the 500-yard freestyle. The time is also the best in Towson history and qualifies as an NCAA "B" cut.

But Liz's time tells just part of the story. The atmosphere in the McKay Natatorium was electric. The announcer was urging the fans into the action as Liz's split times were on record pace. The crowd of friends and supporters were loud and the Tiger team members, gathered on the deck were jumping up and down in encouragement. It was a great moment to see Liz win and set the record!

Ironically, Towson swept the first two heats because freshman Christina Bowman had won the consolation final. In fact, five Towson women scored in the 500 free, helping the Tigers earn an impressive 15 points in that event.

The atmosphere was repeated about 60 minutes later when Tiger sophomore Eric Pinno was the fastest man in the 50-yard freestyle. Like the 100-yard dash in the Olympics, the 50 free is the sprinter's premier event. Eric set a Towson record with a time of 20.62 seconds to claim the CAA title. Teammate Chris Will was in the lane next to Eric. The two Tiger sprinters have pushed each other all season. Although Eric won the race this time, I'm sure the competition that Chris provided all year helped him to his record-setting performance.

Towson almost had a sweep of the 50-yard free champions. Senior Aly Hunt was touched out and finished second with a time of 23.07. A true competitor, she was disappointed that she didn't earn the top spot, even though she had one of the top five times in CAA history.

Aly bounced back to swim the lead-off leg of the 400-yard medley relay, helping the women finish third with a time of 3:50.79, smashing the previous Towson record of 3:53.29, set two years ago. Liz Lebherz swam the freestyle anchor leg of that the relay, as she did in 2005, while freshmen Ivy Wimberly and Jordan Crosby swam the breast and fly legs, respectively.

All in all, it was a great day for Towson. There were other shining moments like junior Caroline Cox dropping her time in the 200-yard individual medley enough to earn a spot in the consolation finals (top 16), even though she did not have one of the top 24 seed times.

Freshman Bradley Bolin performed well enough in the afternoon to earn the eighth and final spot in the finals of the one-meter diving event. Bradley made the most of his opportunity and moved up to earn a fifth-place finish. And, sophomore Hillary Rieveley won the consolation heat of the 50 free.  There were plenty of other swims to cheer about.

In both the men's and women's standings, Towson sits in fourth place, challenging the big three in CAA swimming, UNC-Wilmington, James Madison and George Mason. As we left the natatorium as the session ended, the team was in great spirits, expecting even stronger performances in the remaining two days.