KINGSPORT, Tenn. – The Appalachian Athletic Conference (AAC) swim championships began on Thursday inside the Kingsport Aquatic Center, marking the start of a three-day battle for the conference title. With impressive days on both sides of competition for the Milligan University swim squads, they enter day two with the lead in both the men's and women's championship standings, with 294 and 302 points, respectively.
The evening session's finals started with a victory for the women's 200 Medley Relay, where the Milligan quartet of
Mia Windham,
Teagan Jose,
Mary Grace Bitting and
Madison Akbari finished with a time of 1:49.34.
On the men's side,
Paxton Smith,
Robert Adam,
Christoph Haenel and
Caleb Fry started the evening with a time of 1:30.51 in the 200 Medley Relay to also take home the gold with a time just a second slower than the meet record.
In the women's 500 Freestyle, defending AAC Swimmer of the Year
Riley Renaud won with a 5:04.58.
Emily Newman was right behind her in second place at 5:15.45, and two other Buffs were finalists in
Peyton Brady (4th, 5:26.78) and
Rosalee Wenhame (6th, 5:41.35).
For the men in the 500 Freestyle,
Christoph Haenel earned a gold medal with a first-place time of 4:41.54.
Peter Gilbert posted a second-place finish in 4:42.78.
Jacob Miller also posted a provisional mark at 4:50.77 in fourth, and
Michael Cellucci was the last of the MU finishers in the final in sixth at 4:57.35.
It was a clean sweep of the podium for the women's 200 Individual Medley, as
Abigail Maniace,
Mia Windham and
Teagan Jose finished first, second and third with times of 2:11.19, 2:13.12 and 2:13.89. All three were national qualifying marks. Their teammates
Katelyn Williams (2:15.95) and
Abbie Christensen (2:16.83) grabbed the final spots in the top five with fourth and fifth place finishes.
For the men, it was much of the same, with the top five spots all belonging to the Buffs.
Elijah Holliman (1:50.96) earned the win followed by
Robert Adam (1:51.22) in second and
Nathaniel Halloran (1:55.25) in third. Next,
Reef Parman (1:55.42) had a fourth-place finish and earned a national qualifying time, while
Jack Allen (1:57.72) nabbed the fifth spot.
In the women's 50 Freestyle, Akbari (24.30) was the top Milligan finisher in second place. She had three other teammates reach the final and finish in fourth, fifth and sixth.
Emily Dubes (25.05),
Emily Haas (25.59) and
Mary Grace Bitting (25.66) captured those spots. Dubes joined Akbari with national provisional times.
Milligan earned the top three spots in the men's 50 Freestyle, as
Caleb Fry (20.72) won the event,
Paxton Smith (20.91) was in second and
Andrew Dawson (21.29) came in third.
Gellert Szedlak (21.58) was the fourth MU finalist, and he finished in fifth place. All four of them earned national qualifying marks in the final.
Milligan's women's 800 Freestyle Relay came away with a time of 7:53.07 to win the event. The team was made up of Newman, Renaud, Maniace and Bitting.
The men followed suit, as Adam, Szedlak, Haenel and Holliman teamed up to score a 6:52.40 and take home the top honors.
The teams won all but one of the 10 finals that took place on Thursday evening, and both hold leads of greater than 100 points over their competition entering Friday. The squads will continue with the morning preliminaries on Friday, starting at 9 a.m. at the Kingsport Aquatic Center.
RESULTS
