Swimming: Records fall as Eagles land second at SEC Championships

The Skyline boys’ swimming and diving had an excellent finish to the conference season on Saturday. The Eagles hosted the SEC Championships and placed second and recorded a pool full of team, pool and league records along with many season-best times across the board.

Skyline won six out of 11 swimming events.

The 200 Free Relay (Evan McKelvey, Jack Staunton, Ben Kurniawan, Matthew Lee) and the 400 Free Relay (McKelvey, Lucas Caswell, Kurniawan, Lee) both out-touched Pioneer at the finish to win these events in times of 1:23.73 and 3:04.36 and set new SEC, Pool, and Team records.

The Skyline pool was rocking to the team’s walk-up song of “I Want it That Way” by the Backstreet Boys, both leading up to the 400 Free Relay (the last event of the meet) and during the medal ceremony for the boys!

In individual events, Ben Kurniawan was the SEC champion in both the 200 IM, with a time of 1:54.42, and the 100 Butterfly, in 49.50 seconds. Matthew Lee was the SEC champion and set new Pool and Team records in winning the 50 Freestyle with a time of 20.66 seconds.

Evan McKelvey was the SEC champion in the 100 Freestyle, and set new Pool and Team records with a time of 45.22 seconds.

In the 200 Medley Relay (Ben Deininger, Daniel Osterholzer, Caswell, Staunton) the Eagles finished 3rd with a time of 1:35.35. Additional top 8 individual finishes were turned in by Lucas Caswell in the 100 Butterfly (3rd place – 51.61) and 200 Individual Medley (4th place – 1:56.96); Ben Deininger in the 100 Backstroke (5th place – 54.11); Stuart Knight in the 1 meter Diving (4th place – 373.20 points); Matthew Lee in the 100 Freestyle (2nd place – 45.87); Lewis McCammon in the 100 Breaststroke (7th place – 1:01.14); Evan McKelvey in the 200 Freestyle (2nd place – 1:39.77); Owen McKelvey in the 100 Backstroke (7th place – 55.55); Soren Nielsen in the 1 meter Diving (8th place – 211.05 points); Daniel Osterholzer in the 100 Breaststroke (2nd place – 58.42); Owen Schadler in the 100 Backstroke (6th place – 55.12); Jack Staunton in the 100 Breaststroke (5th place – 1:00.35) and 50 Freestyle (6th place – 22.08); and Andy Xi in the 500 Freestyle (8th place – 4:57.72).

Additional performances resulting in Season Best times were achieved by Zander Barr (50 Free, 100 Free), Nick Cordell (200 Free, 500 Free), Ben Edlund (100 Free, 200 Free), Albert Gu (50 Free, 100 Back), Charlie Hazzi (50 Free, 100 Free), Wesley Jenkins (50 Free, 100 Free), Luke Jordan (100 Fly, 100 Back), Chris Kurniawan (100 Back), Soren Nielsen (100 Breast), Onat Ozer (50 Free, 500 Free), Coleson Probst (50 Free, 100 Back), Ian Root (50 Free, 100 Free), Henry Strait (50 Free, 100 Free), Keane Thai (100 Free), Sawyer Thompson (100 Free, 200 Free), Owen Torres (200 Free, 500 Free), and Connor Zillich (200 Free, 100 Fly).

A tradition of the SEC Championship Meet is the awarding of the Sportsmanship Award to one member from each team, highlighting an individual who has positively benefited the team and his teammates throughout the season. The Skyline recipient of the Sportsmanship Award for 2022 is Nick “Nicky C” Cordell, a senior who has been the epitome of a great teammate throughout his 4 years as a Skyline Eagle.