Denison won four of seven events on Friday night, pushing its lead to nearly 900 points entering the final day of competition at the 2015 Miami Invitational. The Big Red sits in first place with 2,084.5 points while Emory is second at 1,200 points. The Redhawks trail Emory by only two points in third place while Urbana is fourth with 184.5 points.
Senior Andrew Rich led a stable of seven Denison swimmers who all finished in the top-9 in the 100 butterfly. Rich's winning time of 48.89 was a 'B' cut time. Liam Marsden-Readford logged a 'B' cut time in preliminaries at 49.64. He returned with a time of 50.04 in the finals to finish second. Third place went to Kenny Fox in 50.35, while Jason Wesseling took fourth in 50.38. Like Marsden-Readford, Wesseling notched a cut time in prelims at 49.46. Fifth, seventh and ninth place, respectively, went to Conrad Wuorinen (50.42), Kevin Brinegar (50.74) and Brett Weicht (51.28).
The leaderboard was stacked with Big Red swimmers in 400 IM as well. After breaking the Denison varsity record in the 200 IM on Thursday, Jack Lindell returned with a victory in the 400 IM on Friday. Lindell's time of 3:50.28 was just .26 seconds shy of breaking his own Denison record. Positions 4-6 in the standings would go to Blake Kent (4:00.00), Nathan Thorne (4:01.62) and Tim Smith (4:01.62), respectively. Matt Hedman finished ninth in 4:08.03 while PJ Fallon and Ryan Anderson went 1-2 in the consolation final with 'B' cut times of 4:04.61 and 4:06.25.
Sophomore Brendan Howley more than likely punched his ticket to Greensboro with his first place time of 55.45 in the 100 breaststroke. Jake Ball also notched a provisional qualifying time after placing seventh in 57.51.
Four 'B' cut times would be recorded by Ryan Fleming, Joe Brunk, Stuart Hohm and Aaron Saccurato in the 200 free. Fleming's best time came in prelims at 1:39.09. He took second with a time of 1:39.44. Brunk also had his best showing in the morning in 1:39.30. He returned in the finals at 1:39.54 to finish third. Fourth went to Hohm in 1:39.68 while Saccurato finished fifth in 1:40.17.
In the 100 backstroke, Wesseling would finish second in 49.59 after a 49.33 in prelims. Lindell took third in 50.73 after his season-best time of 50.23 earlier in the day.
The Big Red would win one of the two relays on the night as Lindell, Brunk, Hohm and Fleming combined for the victory in the 800 freestyle relay in 6:39.01. Hohm's 200 split time of 1:39.19 was the fastest split in the race.
DU would open the night's finals with a second place finish in the 200 medley relay as Wesseling, Howley, Rich and Fleming touched in 1:30.17. Rich posted a 21.27 fly split while Fleming followed with a 20.05 split in his 50 free. Emory held off DU with a winning time of 1:29.58.
Diving results were not made available.
The Big Red will return on Saturday to the Corwin M. Nixon Natatorium for preliminaries at 10 a.m.
