Feb. 19, 2006

Saturday's Final Results

Piscataway, NJ - By the close of the second day of swimming and diving at the Metropolitan Championships, the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy Mariners had secured three more NCAA qualifiers, with fantastic swims by Senior Andrew Dunlevy, sophomore Jay Capenter and the men of the 200-yard medley relay team.

            Dunlevy, qualified for his second NCAA "B" cut with his fourth place finish in the 200-yard freestyle, swimming the event in 1:42.51. Earlier in the day, at the morning preliminaries, Dunlevy swam a 1:40.97, 0.16 seconds away from a NCAA "A" cut and an automatic trip to University of Minnesota in March.

            Dunlevy finished behind Matt Kavanah from the College of Saint Rose (Division II), Dan Vitagliano and Chris Haines from Southern Connecticut State. Mariner sophomore Matt Ellison also finished in top-20 in the event with a 1:47:14, 18^th place finish. Ellison dropped 1.02 seconds from his preliminary swim earlier in the day.

            With a second place finish in the 100-yard breaststroke, Carpenter qualified for his third NCAA event. Carpenter finished behind Steve Swenson of The College of New Jersey with a time of 56.89, making the NCAA "B" cut standard (58.79) and 0.43 seconds away from the NCAA "A" cut.

            Junior William Ansell finished eighth in the event with a time of 1:01.48, and freshman Victor Policarpio finished 23^rd (1:04.67).

            Dunlevy and Carpenter will also be joined by the 200-yard medley relay team, who qualified for the NCAA "B" cut with a 1:34.84 finish, 2.17 seconds away the "A" cut. The relay team of David Ramseur, Carpenter, Scott Pearson and Ansell finished behind the team from The College of New Jersey who made the DIII NCAA "A" cut by 0.02 seconds. The Mariner team improved their time by 3.48 seconds from their morning preliminary finish. 

            The Mariners had four top-20 finishers in the 400-yard IM event with David Scarberry (4:19.45) and Bryan Vagts (4:20.64) finishing seventh and eighth respectively and John Klocke (4:29.07) and Chris Funke (4:32.79) finishing 15^th and 18^th.

            USMMA also had two top-20 finishers in the 100-yard butterfly with junior Jesse Bowser finishing 10^th with a time of 53.87 and freshman Scott Pearson finishing 15^th with a time of 55.31.

            Ramseur, Pearson and Bowser along with junior Chris Jackson also had notable swims in the 100-yard backstroke. Ramseur finished fourth with a time of 53.89, 1.02 seconds away from the NCAA "B" cut. Pearson finished in eighth place behind Ramseur followed by Bowser and Jackson in eleventh and sixteenth place.

            For the women, sophomore Robyn Jimenez was 2.72 seconds away from the NCAA "B" qualifying time with her 1:10.55 swim in the 100-yard breaststroke. Jimenez finished the race in seventh place.

            In the women's 100-yard backstroke, Senior Kimberly Sercel finished in 20^th place with a time of 1:05.61, followed by junior Morgan Evans with a time of 1:06.47 in 22^nd place.

            The Mariners look forward to the third and final day of competition at Rutgers University on Sunday in hopes of plenty more NCAA qualifying times.

            Keep up to date with the rest of the Metropolitan Championship results at www.besmarttinc.com.