By Rachel Dyl

Staff Writer

Denison plunged into the water, racing and diving against long time national and conference rival Kenyon College, resulting in a split between the men and women’s teams.

The Denison men suffered a 196-104 loss against the Kenyon Lords. Jack Lindell ‘17 led the Denison men in points, winning the 200 backstroke with a time of 1:53.15 and placing second in the 400 IM, receiving a ‘B’ cut time with this season-best performance. The Denison men picked up four other second place finishes from Jason Wesseling ‘18 in the 100 meter backstroke, Ryan Fleming ‘16 in the 50 meter freestyle, as well as the men’s 200 medley and 200 freestyle relays.

The Denison men dominated on the diving board, picking up first and second place on both the 1 meter and 3 meter boards.  Brian Allen ’17 placed first in the 3 meter board event with a score of 323.25, with Max Levy ‘17 closely following with a score of 314.85. Levy won the 1 meter competition with a score of 316.95 with teammate Ben Lewis ’16 picking up second place

The Denison women came out on top, posting impressive times against Kenyon this past Saturday. The women ended up with a final score of 157.5 to edge out rival Kenyon who held 142.5 points.

Ashley Yearwood ’16 led the Denison women with four individual victories in the 100 backstroke (57.98), the 100 freestyle (52.23) and the 200 medley and free relays.

The Denison women recorded nine NCAA ‘B’ cuts throughout the course of the meet. The 200 medley relay (Carolyn Kane ‘17, Marissa Bednarek ‘16, Mary Van Leuven ‘16 and Yearwood) logged a season-best time, also clocking a ‘B’ cut time of 1:44.90. The 200 free relay (Kate Wright ‘16, Yearwood, Kane and Van Leuven) also finished with a season-best ‘B’ cut time of 1:34.41. Campbell Costley ’17 dropped two ‘B’ cuts in the 200 and 500 free and Bednarek also dropped two NCAA ‘B’ cuts in the 100 and 200 breaststroke.

In women’s diving, Eva Vivero ’19 won the 3 meter dive with a score of 213.75 and finished second in the 1 meter dive with a score of 206.85.

In regards to the team’s progress, Lindell said, “I think overall the team is progressing in the right direction. People have slowly been climbing back up towards the proper racing mentality. The biggest thing that I noticed from the past weekends of racing was that we all need to rediscover our killer instinct that we had last season and get our hand to the wall first.”

The Big Red will compete in the three-day Miami Invitational Dec. 3 for their next meet.

Photo Courtesy of Nelson Dow