ITHACA, N.Y. – It was another action-packed day inside the Kelsey Partridge Bird Natatorium on Friday as competition at the 2024 Liberty League Swimming & Diving Championships included the 200-yard butterfly, 100-yard backstroke, 100-yard breaststroke, the men's 1-meter diving and the 800-yard freestyle relay. It remains a tight race in the team standings with RIT atop the leaderboard with 1,150 team points so far with Ithaca in second collecting 1,085.5 followed by RPI (896.5) and Clarkson University who have totaled 546.
The lone relay race on Friday was the 800-yard freestyle relay, which an exciting finish. RPI's relay squad ended up besting the field with a time of 6:46.37 followed by RIT who swam a time of 6:51.82 and in third-place was Ithaca. The Bombers had
Santiago Ludwig,
James Kissel,
Matthew Janssen and
Ryan Cooke up team up for a time of 6:55.30.
The Bombers had both
James Kissel and
Santiago Ludwig competing in the "A" final of the 200-yard butterfly as Ludwig ended up coming home in eight place with a recorded time of 1:53.71 and Kissel was able to earn more team points with his time of 1:53.08, which was good for sixth. RIT's Drew Scheib was able to repeat as champion as he paced the field with a time of 1:47.82, which surpassed an NCAA B-cut.
James Collishaw continued his strong meet winning yet another individual event, this time coming in the 100-yard backstroke. He bested the field producing a finals time of 48.89, which was an NCAA B-cut as well as an Liberty League Championship record. Also appearing in the "A" final and swimming to a seventh-place finish was first year
Alec Kutsner who put together a recorded time of 51.68.
The 100-yard breaststroke also had a pair of Bombers in the top final as RPI's Nicholas Stefanidis repeated as LL champion while resetting his previous championship record time of 54.40. Finishing in fifth place for Ithaca was
Michael Paulos with a recorded time of 56.06 and in seventh was
Joe Pezzini who touched the final wall in 57.91. Paulos time 56.06 broke a 28 year Ithaca team record in the event.
Ithaca had three divers competing in the finals on the 1-meter boards that saw RIT's Luke Albanese win with a combined score of 528.55. The top Ithaca finished proved to be
Ethan Godfrey who finished in fifth place with a finals score of 480.60. Coming home in sixth was
Kian Long who totaled 448.55 and in eight for IC was
Samuel Smith who totaled a finals score of 377.20.
The 2024 Liberty League Championships finish up tomorrow with the 100-yard freestyle, 200-yard backstroke, 200-yard breaststroke, 400-yard freestyle relay, 1,650-yard freestyle and women's 3-meter diving. Swimming preliminaries begin at 10 a.m., followed by diving preliminaries at 1 p.m. and finals for both at 6 p.m.
