Senior Evan Rhinesmith broke his own Wabash record in the 100-yard breaststroke Friday night in the finals of the Calvin Winter Invitiational. Four Little Giants made NCAA provisional cut times during the final two days of competition on Friday and Saturday.
Rhinesmith (right), who already owns or is
a part of five school records in the pool for the Little Giants, topped his own 100 breaststroke record by finishing third in the finals Friday night with a time of 56.47. That eclipsed his previous record of 57.13 set at the DePauw Invitational in 2009. His time was also quick enough to make a provisional qualifying time for the 2011 NCAA Division III National Championship meet.
David Birrer also posted a national "B" cut time by advancing to the finals of the 200 butterfly. His preliminary swim of 1:51.32 easily topped the provisional qualifying mark. Birrer finished second in the finals with a time of 1:54.08. Teammate Adam Current also qualified for the finals in the 200 fly, finishing seventh with a time of 2:00.57.
Current and Eric Vaughn both made NCAA "B" cut times in the 100 butterfly on Saturday. Current swam the fastest time in the prelims at 50.46 to top the "B" cut time of 50.74. Vaughn took second in the finals with a time of 50.51 to also swim a provisional qualifying time. Current was third in the finals with a time of 51.01, while Birrer grabbed fourth place by finishing in 51.56.
Freshman David Phillips added a sixth-place finish in the 400 individual medley Friday evening, posting a time of 4:19.60. Logan Rice took eighth place with a time of 4:26.48 in the finals.
Sophomore diver Jake Schild advanced to the finals of the one-meter diving competition. His finals total of 358.35 points was good to take fifth place. Saturday Schild finished seventh on the three-meter board with a total of 283.00 points.
Rhinesmith, Birrer, Eric Vaughn, and Charles Williams scored a sixth-place finish in the 200-yard freestyle relay to start the Friday evening competition. The quartet finished with a time of 1:26.33.
Saturday Wabash opened the finals with a third-place finish in the 200-yard medley relay, finishing with a time of 1:34.44. Rhinesmith added a third-place finish in the finals of the 200-yard breaststroke Saturday night, finishing in 2:09.37. Williams took ninth place in the 100 free, but posted the fourth-fastest time in the finals at 46.77. A slower 47.70 swim in the morning prelims put him in the consolation finals Saturday night.
Vaughn added a ninth-place finish in the 200-yard individual medley to close out the individual swimming events Saturday night.
Wabash finished fourth overall in the team scoring with 391 points. Grand Valley State University won the team title with 1,331 points. Kalamazoo College was second (597 points), followed by Olivet College (450). Calvin College took fifth place (296) with Valparaiso (204), Alma (154), and Hope (15) completing the team scoring.
The Little Giants return to competition after the winter break. Wabash will travel to Florida over the holidays for the team's annual training trip.