With the competition steepening, the times were dropping rapidly for everyone as Ohio concluded the TYR Invitational in Evanston, Ill. in third place.
Ohio pulled away from Grand Canyon University on the final day to finish third with 563 points, behind Big Ten schools Northwestern and Michigan State.
The races were close all weekend. Ohio won some and lost some by milliseconds. The 200-yard medley relay was .02 seconds away from claiming fifth-place. Instead it settled for sixth. Emily Zimcosky out-touched her opponent by .1 seconds in the 200-yard freestyle to finish second and Corrin Van Lanen was edged out by .07 seconds in the 100-yard butterfly, placing second.
An event that is not part of the dual-meet schedule, the 50-yard butterfly, was the only one in which Ohio touched the wall first. Corrin Van Lanen continued her streak of winning at least one event in every meet this season.
The preliminary races were in the morning. They decided which final event the swimmers would be in. Times in ‘B’ finals were better than in ‘A’ finals. Samantha Glass just missed out on making the ‘A’ final in the 200-yard backstroke and won the ‘B’ final with a time that would have been fourth in the ‘A’ final.
Ohio was a consistent presence in the ‘A’ finals. There was at least one swimmer in 15 of the 19 finals.
Everyone was setting personal bests for Ohio. Some even put themselves in the Ohio record book.
Zimcosky picked up three second-place finishes, along with a sixth-place. She swam in all five relay events. Zimcosky had a chance to win the 500-yard freestyle after ending preliminaries with the top time, but she was not able to improve her time, finishing second. Second-place finishes were also achieved in the 200- and 100-yard freestyle. Those times were ninth and tenth best of all-time for Ohio in each event, respectively.
Van Lanen picked up two NCAA ‘B’ cuts over the weekend. The times didn't qualify her to make the NCAA Championships but do put her on the invite list. A ‘B’ cut was achieved in the preliminaries for the 50-yard freestyle, but could not be replicated in the final, as Van Lanen finished fifth. The 100-yard butterfly saw the other ‘B’ cut for Van Lanen as she finished second, just milliseconds out of first.
Each team was putting its best swimmers in each relay, as there was less worry about being tired. Ohio managed top-four finishes in three of the five relays. Freestyle has been the best stroke for Ohio and its 800-yard relay had the best finish: third-place. The 200-yard relay placed fourth.
Emilia Lahtinen was the leading Bobcat in all breaststroke events, putting up times good enough to enter the Ohio record book. An eleventh-place finish in the 100-yard was good enough to be placed sixth all-time for Ohio. She put herself eighth all-time for Ohio in the 200-yard with an eight-place finish. Her best result, however, did not make the record books as she placed seventh in the 50-yard race.
This was the final team meet of the season, although some members will be heading to Columbus, Ohio for the US Winter Nationals which lasts Nov. 29 to Dec. 2.
