UB swimming and diving (5-0, 4-0 MAC) finished second at the Mid-American Conference Championships in Bowling Green, OH at the end of the week — falling more than 200 points short of its second-straight MAC Championship victory.
Akron placed first with a dominant 896.5 points, which blew UB’s 619.5 points out of the water.
Five Bulls earned first team All-MAC honors: freshman Sawyer Bosley, junior Victoria Franz, seniors Toni Naccarella and Katie Pollock and graduate student Jillian Lawton.
Sophomores Mia Narccarella and Marij van der Mast and junior Clarice Fisher went on to earn second team All-MAC honors.
Franz clinched MAC Diver of the Year, becoming just the second Bull ever to win the award, joining alum Meili Carpenter.
Freshman Marialis Kwak took the MAC Freshman Diver of the Year award while diving coach Russ Dekker received the MAC Diving Coach of the Year honor for the third time in his career.
UB divers also set a number of program records last week.
Wednesday saw Mia and Toni Naccarella, Pollock and Lawton smash the 200-medley relay record with a 1:37.58 finish, .24-seconds faster than the previous record. But Akron still edged UB out by .30-seconds for first place.
Thursday brought further success as Franz broke UB’s 12-year gold medal drought in the 1-meter dive — clinching the distinction for the Bulls for the first time since 2010. Franz won with a score of 318.75 and defeated Eastern Michigan senior Bethany Berger by a 3.45-point margin.
Lawton, Bosley, Toni Naccarella and junior Elinor Duley closed the day with a 200-freestyle relay program record of 1:29.43, which earned them silver.
Day 3 saw Pollock break her own 200-breaststroke record twice to strike gold with a final of 59.92 seconds. Latwon followed suit with a personal best in the 100-butterfly at 53.02 seconds.
While the Bulls weren’t able to win back-to-back MAC Championships, they put on an impressive performance that saw both individual and team success.
Sophie McNally is an assistant sports editor and can be reached at sophie.mcnally@ubspectrum.com
Sophie McNally is an assistant sports editor at The Spectrum. She is a history major studying abroad for a year from Newcastle University in the UK. In her spare time, she can be found blasting The 1975 or Taylor Swift and rowing on a random river at 5 a.m.
Photo: Courtesy of UB Blueprint
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
