by Andrew Goodwin
The Whitworth swim team closed out the Logger Swimming Invitational with four more individual event victories on Sunday night at the University of Puget Sound.
The Pirate men finished in second place out of six teams.
Owen Lempert, ‘20, Patrick Wilber, ‘18, and earned his second individual wins of the meet on Sunday night. Keenan Robinson, ‘20, picked up his first individual title of the weekend.
Owen sprinted to victory in the men’s 50-yard freestyle with a season-best time of 21.37. Colin Lempert, ‘18, was seventh in that event in 22.54. Owen’s victory added to his win in the 100-yard freestyle on Saturday night.
Owen added a sixth-place finish in the 100-yard breaststroke in 1:01.40, an event in which Blake James, ‘19, was fifth in 1:01.25 and Taylor Lee, ‘19, won the consolation final in 1:02.06.
Wilber earned his second win of the meet by posting a season-best mark of 50.58 in the 100-yard backstroke, adding to his victory in the 200 backstroke on Saturday. Bryon Rossmiller, ‘20, (54.22) finished fourth and Robinson was eighth (56.77).
Robinson’s victory came in the night’s first event, the 1,650-yard freestyle. He won in 16:20.15 by less than one second over Puget Sound.
In addition to the three individual wins, the Pirate men also got a pair of runner-up finishes on Sunday. Rossmiller finished second in the 400-yard individual medley in 4:11.93 with Jake McCollough, ‘18, fourth in 4:21.05. Then McCollough took second in the 200-yard butterfly with a time of 1:57.44.
The Whitworth men closed the meet with a second-place finish in the 400-yard freestyle relay with a time of 3:11.95, less than a half second behind Linfield (3:11.50).
The Pirates gained ground on host UPS, but still ended up second to the Loggers in the final team standings with a score of 733 to Puget Sound’s 810.
WhitworthPirates.com
After a weaker performance in Friday’s two events, the Pirate women roared back on Saturday to move from fourth to third place in the Logger Open Invitational. With the performance, the team moved above Redlands (Calif.), but still fell well below Pacific Lutheran and Puget Sound.
Hannah Galbraith was the Bucs’ lone win on Saturday. She posted a three second win in the 200-yard backstroke and finished with a time of 2:06.22. The Pirates also finished well in the 500-yard freestyle. Megan Thompson, ‘18, and Gabrielle Flock, ‘19, finished second and third respectively to give Whitworth its best event performance of the day.
On Sunday, Whitworth maintained their third place spot to earn the bronze on the weekend. Team highlights included another win for Galbraith in the 100-yard backstroke and a second place finish for Flock in the 200-yard freestyle.
Both Pirate teams will have to wait over a month for their next meet. They’ll travel west once again to compete at Seattle University on Jan. 7. The meet will begin at 2 p.m.