Men?s and women?s swim teams take NCAA Division III titles
For the eighteenth time in the last nineteen seasons, Kenyon's men's and women's swim teams made a clean sweep of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division III Championship titles. The Ladies claimed their eighteenth national title on March 16, while the Lords added to the NCAA's longest championship win streak by capturing their twenty-third straight national title on March 23. The Lords and Ladies have now taken a combined forty-one national championship titles in the last twenty-three years.
Of the eighteen swimming events contested in the cham-pionship, the Lords won six individual titles, set four NCAA records, and swept all five relay titles for the second straight season. They posted a team score of 589 points. Runner-up Johns Hopkins University totaled 382 points, and Emory University claimed third place with 358 points.
Sophomore Marc Courtney-Brooks emerged as the strongest swimmer for Kenyon. He was named the NCAA Division III Swimmer of the Year after setting two national records and collecting titles in two individual events and four relay events. Courtney-Brooks won the 100-yard freestyle and the 100-yard butterfly. He also swam a leg on the winning 200-yard freestyle, the 400-yard medley, the 800-yard freestyle and the 400-yard freestyle relay teams. He joined Leandro Monterio, Read Boon, and Carlos Vega to win the 400-yard medley relay in an NCAA Division III record time of 3:19.31, then teamed with Gabriel Rodrigues, Monteiro, and Boon to swim the 800-yard freestyle relay in a record time of 6:36.26.
Boon, a junior, kept pace with Courtney-Brooks by claiming one individual title (200-yard freestyle) and five relay titles. Boon, who won seven titles last season, now has a career total of seventeen national titles.
Other individual winners for Kenyon included Vega, a junior, who captured the 100-yard butterfly title. He was also a part of three winning relay teams. Monteiro and senior Michael Bonomo went on to establish a couple more records before the championship came to a close. A freshman, Mon-teiro clocked in at 1:47.21 in the 200-yard backstroke, while Bonomo, a senior, smashed his own record in the 1,650-yard freestyle by turning in a winning time of 15:25.73.
One week earlier, the Ladies tallied 577 team points to earn their eighteenth title in the last nineteen seasons. They held off challenges from runner-up Denison University (418) and third-place Emory University (368). Three individual titles, four relay titles, and two NCAA records highlighted the Ladies' cruise through the championship.
Beth Galloway, a sophomore, got things started for the Ladies by winning the 100-yard backstroke in an NCAA Division III record time of 55.70. She also helped to power the Ladies' 200-yard freestyle, the 200-yard medley, and the 400-yard freestyle relay teams to victory.
The other Kenyon record in the meet came from senior Abby Brethauer, who clocked in at 2:03.07 in the 200 butter-fly, breaking the fourteen-year-old NCAA record of 2:03.74 set by Amy Heasley Williams '88, now the College's assistant swim coach. Unfortunately for Brethauer, her record didn't last long; Grove City College's Peggy Whitbeck turned in a time of 2:03.03 in the finals to set the record and win the event. Brethauer had to settle for second place with a finals time of 2:03.13.
Junior Ashley Rowatt added to Kenyon's title total with a win in the 400-yard individual medley. She also was a part of the winning 800-yard freestyle relay team.
Sophomore Agnese Ozolina swam a leg on all four winning relay teams, while senior Madeleine Courtney-Brooks was a part of two of those relay teams.
The team titles were the first for the Lords and Ladies under the direction of head coach Peter Casares, who will be at Wabash College next season. An assistant coach during the 2001 season, Casares took over the program this season in place of Jim Steen, who is on sabbatical.
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