Men’s and women’s teams netted top three finishes at Big East Championships

By Robbie Dzierzanowski, Campus News Editor

Xavier men’s and women’s swim teams finished up their season at the 2022 Big East Championship in New York with the men’s team taking second overall and the women’s team taking third overall.

The men’s side was highlighted by junior Andrew Martin, who led the conference finals with a school-record and NCAA B-Cut time in the mile, finishing third in the Big East with a time of 15:19.15. Also in the mile were freshman Adam Lamping and junior Brett Wilson, who finished fifth and eighth respectively, both scoring points for the Musketeers. Martin also finished with a Big East title in two more events: the 500 and 200-yard freestyles.

Graduate student Nick Mahoney finished in fourth place in the 200-yard backstroke, taking the highest finish out of the four participating Xavier men’s swimmers. Mahoney’s finish brought the Musketeers within 0.5 points of Georgetown for the lead in the Big East standings after the event.

Sophomore Jack Parker set a new school record in the 200-yard butterfly in the preliminary heat for the event and eventually took second in the Championship Final, all while freshman Caleb Petranchuk and Wilson also swam into the top six finishers.

Parker also had a notable swim in the 200-yard butterfly, in which he took third overall with a time of 1:48.55.

To finish up the meet for the men’s swimmers, the 400-yard freestyle relay consisted of freshman Ethan Saunders, Martin, junior Ethan Wing and graduate student Christian Thomas, who snagged a Big East Championship title with a time of 2:58.01.  

On the women’s side, the highlight was sophomore Kali Fischer, who had the top swim for the women in the 200-yard back. Fischer set a new school record and finished fourth overall with a time of 1:59.21.

Xavier’s women also used a commanding presence in the 200-yard breaststroke to propel them up into third place, with additional points coming from the 400-yard freestyle relay made up of freshman Alexis Worrall, sophomores Clara Keiser and Fischer and junior Clare Bosse. The relay locked the Musketeers into a third place finish, a mere 12 points ahead of Georgetown in fourth.

Throughout the meet, the Musketeers amassed a total of six swimmers who were top three finishers in their respective events, but that was not enough to win a Big East Conference Championship for the men’s or women’s teams.  

For the men’s team, this snaps a three-year winning streak of the Big East Team Championships title, losing by only 9.5 points to Georgetown this year—the closest margin of a first-second result in the Big East since 2009.

For nearly all Musketeers, this ends their season. Martin’s season will continue when he swims the 1,650-yard freestyle at Georgia Institute of Technology for the 2022 NCAA Division I Men’s Swimming and Diving Championship in two weeks, beginning March 16.