Week 6 roundup, Part 1

We will get to Emory later

TLDR

• Chicago’s early season invitational is the setting for more than 50 swims generating SRS points

• Kenyon’s weekend of dual meets gives us a lot of information about the Lords and Ladies

• Al Weik of Denison was the greatest swimmer in the history of Men’s Division III to never win a Swimmer of the Year award

• The MIT Engineers welcome alumni back to the pool

Chicago

Here are two pieces of information that we cannot quite square.

1. The University of Chicago decided in 2021 to name their early season invitational the 'D3 Shootout'.¹ They continue to call it that.

2. So far this year in Chicago, there have been over 2,000 shootings, including an incident five days before the start of this meet, in which a Chicago police officer was among two people shot in a traffic stop on the city's South Side. The shooter used an automatic weapon, firing wildly, killing the driver of his own vehicle and hitting the officer five times. The officer was transported to the University of Chicago Hospital where he was pronounced dead. The officer's name was Enrique Martinez. He was 26 years old.

Seriously, guys. Have some feel.

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This invitational continues to bring together some of the most talented teams in Division III, from states as distant as California, Texas, and New York. No fewer than 55 swims generated positive SRS points.

Cooper Costello's 100 Fly (47.50) generated the top SRS score for the meet. And his 200 Fly (1:47.36) was the third best swim of the meet. Both of these times are well under last year's invite times for Nationals.

At this point, we expect Cooper Costello to be a star. The big surprise for us was Cami Wilson of Swarthmore who went 48.16 in 100 Fly.

Tip of the hat to Chicago first-year John Butler who walked the talk, setting a meet record in 200 Free with a 1:38.75.

On the Women's side, Quinn Weygandt of Swarthmore had the standout swim, finishing the 400 IM in 4:22.61.

At Nationals last year, Quinn Weygandt finished fifth in 400 IM with a 4:22.60.

Of course, the winner of the 400 IM at 2024 Nationals was Neely Burns of Trinity who finished second here with a 4:25.21. That's about 10 seconds off her national championship time, but of course the season is young.

Like so many other events at this meet, this race was just loaded with talent. Besides Ms. Weygandt and Ms. Burns, there were four other 400 IM Nationals finalists competing in this event - Emmie Appl and Kathryn Jones (Pomona-Pitzer), Ella McEver (Chicago), and Rin Iimi (WashU).

Overall, other swims in Women’s events worth more than 1.00 SRS points:

• Elisabella Forest (Chicago) - 200 Back, 2:00.46

• Izzy Yoon (Pomona-PItzer) - 200 Back, 2:00.81

• Alicia Soosai (Chicago) - 100 Breast, 1:02.94

• Karen Zhao (Chicago) - 200 Free, 1:50.34

Denison @ Kenyon, OWU @ Kenyon

The Kenyon Ladies finally participated in a couple of real meets and the results are not hard to interpret. Despite the departure of major points scorers Sydney McCallie, Caleigh Wukitch and Sophie Schmitz, the Kenyon Ladies look solid.

Their dominant breaststrokers - Jennah Fadely and Gabby Wei - still look dominant.

Kenyon’s Bengisu Caymaz

Bengisu Caymaz, who as a first-year was national champion in both the 500 Free and the mile, looks ready for the new season (positive SRS in the 200 Free and 500 Free), and the Ladies added some first-years who are already registering positive SRS points (Kelsey Van Eldik and Tuva Siegel). 

The Ladies also are showing some early season depth. Amelia Stevenson, Ashlyn Widmer, Celia Ford, Gwen Eisenbeis, Jordan Herrera, Lisa Torrecillas-Jouault, Molly Haag, Nora Lee Brown, and Sydney Geboy have all posted swims in this young season that place them in the D3 top 25 of at least one event.

The Lords, on the other hand, might be encountering some headwinds.

As we noted elsewhere, the Kenyon Lords lost to graduation five of the ten swimmers that went to the Men's National Championship last season. The actual situation is a little worse than that.

First, they graduated the single best diver in the division (possibly the best diver in the history of the division), Israel Zavaleta.

Second, Senior Aleksa Dobric, while reportedly still on campus, is not swimming, subtracting from the Lords an athlete who at 2024 Nationals was a championship finalist in 100 Free and a consolation finalist in 100 Breast. And that understates the problem. Kenyon's relays at Nationals were astonishing - and this included setting a new Division III record in 400 Medley. Mr. Dobric was part of every Kenyon relay except the 800 Free.

The upside for the Lords is that they still have a lot of talent in Djordje Drogojlovich (who we consider a good prospect for Swimmer of the Year), Ethan Manske, Noel Tumbasz, and Roman Savage.

They will benefit from the services of D2 transfer Kirill Sidorko. And they are getting some intriguing performances from first-years Spencer Stluka, Charlie Green, and Michael Baltodano, and from Sophomore Peter Dunson.

Al Weik

The annual photos of Al Weik display the cumulative effects of life in Granville.

Denison University inducted Al Weik (Denison, ‘14) into their athletics hall of fame. Al Weik is the greatest Men’s swimmer in Division III history to never win the CSCAA Swimmer of the Year (SOY) award.

Here’s a good comp: Like Kenyon’s Marc Courtney-Brooks, Mr. Weik won an astonishing seven individual gold medals at Nationals. In the course of winning those seven gold medals, Mr. Courtney-Brooks was named SOY three times, while Mr. Weik was named SOY zero times. Care to guess which of the two was a distance swimmer?

Connor Vincent and the Miler's Curse

Anyway, the CSCAA included Al Weik in the inaugural class of the Division III Swimming & Diving Hall of Fame (where, again, he is the only member of the inaugural class to never win SOY), and now he is also the recipient of HOF honors from his alma mater. Good on Denison for recognizing Mr. Weik’s extraordinary career.

The Development Office is probably a little irritated.

We have information, from a reliable source, that during the MIT alumni meet - which, let’s be clear, was an alumni meet - both Iris Yang and Kate Augustyn unleashed 100 Back times faster than anything they had posted so far this season. And we are told both Sarah Bernard and Ella Roberson also posted season-best times in their respective events.

Why the Engineers chose to unload on the alumni is unclear.

The season-best times mentioned above are not on SwimCloud and are not official. Because it was an alumni meet.

1. In an article in UChicago News entitled 'The Chicago Manual of Style, explained' the well known American English style guide identifies the Merriam-Webster dictionary as the preferred reference work for use by UChicago students.

Here is Merriam-Webster's primary definition of the word 'shootout': a battle fought with handguns or rifles.

Of course, shoot-out does have another meaning in a sports context in which a contest is decided by a series of alternating close shots taken by teams attempting to get a ball or a puck into a goal. Swim meets are not decided by placing a ball or a puck in a goal.

There is a tertiary meaning for shoot-out, which is something like 'a highly competitive contest.' If used in real time or retrospect to describe such a contest, shoot-out would merely be a tired cliché. But here it is being used in advance. When nobody knows whether the meet will be particularly competitive. If you are looking for a rationalization for this wildly inappropriate name, you should probably keep looking.