Through six events the Denison men's swimming and diving team is off to a scintillating start at the 2015 North Coast Athletic Conference Championship. The Big Red has totaled 663 points, while winning three of the six event championships along with two meet records. They lead second-place Kenyon College by 162.5 points. Third-place belongs to DePauw University with 360 points.
Denison's first event championship would come in the 200 individual medley where Joe Brunk posted a 30.48 split in the breaststroke 50 and a 25.97 split in the final freestyle split for the come-from-behind win over his teammate, Jack Lindell (1:49.96) and Kenyon's Trevor Manz (1:49.97). Brunk posted a winning time of 1:49.35 which was a new NCAC record. It also marked his second career conference title.
Denison's depth on the diving boards can't be overstated enough and once again the Big Red's dominance was on full display as they occupied positions one through five along with seventh-place. Senior Connor Dignan repeated as champion on the 3-meter board with a winning 11-dive score of 588.00. Second-place went to Max Levy with a score 533.05 while Brian Allen took third with 520.85. Connor Dorff (507.35) took fourth while Ben Lewis finished fifth with 500.35 points. Nathan Lightman rounded out Denison's scoring in seventh with a score of 454.00. All six of Denison's divers posted scores which will qualify them for the NCAA Diving Relays in Chicago, Ill. on Feb. 27-28. Overall, Denison scored 179 points in the event, allowing them to leapfrog the Lords in the team standings.
The 50 freestyle saw co-champions crowned as Denison's Conrad Wuorinen and Kenyon's Austin Caldwell touched at exactly the same time, 20.43. The victory marked the 10th all-time win for Denison in the 50 free at the NCAC Championship. It was also DU's second-straight title in the event. Last year's winner, Ryan Fleming, would touch third in 20.47. Coming in fifth for Denison was senior Damon Rosenburg with a time of 20.65.
In the 500 freestyle, the Big Red would rack up some points by placing four swimmers within the top-seven. Stuart Hohm finished second behind Wabash's Jack Belford who posted a winning time of 4:29.24. Hohm was the runner-up in 4:30.49 and Aaron Saccurato took fourth in 4:31.45. Sixth place would be occupied by Ben Burdick (4:33.12) and Franz Kabelka touched seventh in 4:37.48.
The opening event of Thursday night's finals was the 200 free relay and the team of Fleming, Wuorinen, Max Howes and Rosenburg would log a time of 1:20.12, breaking a school record which had stood since David Curtis, John Geissinger, Chris Bagley and Mike Barczak put up a time of 1:20.79 in 2009. Swimming second in the relay, Wuorinen's 50 free split of 19.63 was the fastest in the race.
Thursday's finale saw the 400 medley relay of Jason Wesseling, Rosenburg, Andrew Rich and Wuorinen finish second in 3:15.93, which was just one tenth of a second behind first-place Kenyon.
