IOWA CITY, IOWA – The University of the Incarnate Word swimming and diving teams closed out the Iowa Hawkeye Invitational on Sunday with the men finishing in third place and the women in eighth place.
The UIW men got the final day off to a good start in the 1650-yard freestyle.
Kyrylo Shvets (Kharkiv, Ukraine/Kharkiv SSS) swam the second fastest time in school history in the event touching the wall in 15:24.36 to finish in third place.
Nathan Coppock (San Antonio/Johnson HS) and
Connor Hennessy (San Antonio/Business Careers HS) finished seventh and eighth, respectively in the same event.
In the 200-yard backstroke, the Cardinals had four swimmers score in the event.
Aaron Moran (Helotes/Brandeis HS) led the way with a fourth place finish. He swam a personal record in a time of 1:46.38.
David Moore (San Antonio/Marshall HS) led the team in the 200-yard breaststroke with a time of 2:00.86 to take sixth place.
Andrii Chechelnytskyi (Lugansk, Ukraine/LOVUFK) followed in eighth place and
Aaron Tipton (Mansfield/Mansfield HS) added a 14
th place finish.
Moore followed up his swim in the breaststroke with a second runner-up finish in the 200-yard butterfly. He notched his personal record and near school record with a time of 1:47.39.
Beau Fusilier (Georgetown/Home School) took fifth in 1:49.05 and Coppock added an eighth place finish.
"I'm proud of how our men performed against some big time schools," said UIW head coach Phil Davis. "To come to a Big Ten meet and hold your own felt great. We won some good races and had chances to win several more. I'm loving this team right now."
The Cardinals finished with 506 points and finished in third overall. Iowa won with 923 points and they were followed by Denver (905), UIW, Drury (397), North Dakota (334) and UW-Milwaukee (260).
The UIW women struggled in the final day with only
Alona Kyselova (Kiev, Ukraine/Tarasa Shevchenko) and the 400-yard free style relay team scoring points. Kyselova finished in 13
th place in the 1650-yard freestyle with a time of 17:17.46. The 400 freestyle relay team also finished in 13
th place.
"It's always great to compete against Power Five conference schools regardless of how you do it," said Davis. "At the end of the day, the points show us ahead of Nebraska, Illinois and Iowa State and I will take it."
Iowa won the women's title as well with 900 points. Denver finished in second with 802 points and they were followed by Harvard (410), Drury (327), UW-Milwaukee (315), North Dakota (276), Northern Iowa (186) and UIW (141).
"We still have lots of room to improve on this team, but we are driving down the right rack, but at the moment, we are at the start of a hill, so we need more help to push us to the top," added Davis.
The Cardinals are back in action December 18-20 at the UIW Christmas Invitational at the Palo Alto College Natatorium.
####
pr15604smm
