WILMINGTON- The Wilmington College men’s swimming team competed in a dual meet Saturday against Ohio Athletic Conference rival University of Mount Union.

This meet also served as their senior recognition meet. The “long event” format gave swimmers an opportunity to practice their 200s of stroke before heading into their championship meet in three weeks.

The meet was extremely close, but ultimately, Mount Union came out on top, 111-94.

The Fightin’ Quakers demonstrated strength over the course of the meet, having at least one finisher in the top three of every event.

“(The men) have been training very hard and well lately; we’re preparing for our (OAC) championship meet. With that tough work in mind, we had some outstanding swims and a great team effort. Today, we also celebrated our senior class. It’s difficult to find words that show how much I appreciate their commitment to Wilmington College and the swimming program. I would like to personally thank Erik Spraul and David Spraul. This is a special class.”

Sophomore Andrew Stewart (Wilmington, OH/Clinton-Massie) earned two first-place, individual, titles for the team- the 50-meter freestyle (24.22) and the 100-meter freestyle (53.50). Both of these times were seasonal bests for Stewart.

In addition, Stewart teamed up with senior Erik Spraul (Cincinnati, OH/Princeton), senior Brendan Tirado (Dayton, OH/Oakwood), and junior Alex Tillapaugh (Wilmington, OH/Wickenburg) to form a 200-meter freestyle relay which claimed first-place.

Sophomore Andrew Haga (Gahanna, OH/Westerville South) earned one of the team’s other two, individual first-place wins, finishing the 100-meter butterfly in 1:03.72. Haga was also a member, along with senior David Spraul (Cincinnati, OH/Princeton), freshman Freddie Snowden (Frisco, TX/Lone Star), and Tillapaugh, of a second-place 200-meter medley relay (1:54.82).

Erik Spraul brought home the last of the Fightin’ Quakers’ first-place wins- in the 200-meter individual medley, with a time of 2:13.94.

“Erik has trained extremely well this year. He had a really nice senior meet today,” Breen said.

Junior David Bellus (Upper Malboro, MD/Northmont) snagged one of the Fightin’ Quakers’ three, second-place finishes Bellus’ in the 800-meter freestyle with a time of 9:23.77. The other two second-place finishes came from Erik Spraul in the 400-meter freestyle (4:18.12) and junior Cody Nash (Kingsburg, CA/Kingsburg) in the 200-meter breaststroke (2:34.72).

“Cody swam a great [200 breaststroke] today. He is really starting to put everything together that we have been working on in practice,” said Breen.

Third-place finishes in this meet came from: Tirado, 200-meter freestyle (2:04.80); D. Spraul, 200-meter backstroke (2:22.61); Snowden, 200-meter breaststroke (2:42.37); the 200-meter medley relay team of sophomore Lawrence Daya (North Canton, OH/Glen Oak), Nash, freshman Brody Morris (Leesburg, OH/Washington Senior), and freshman Jared Shoemaker (Springfield, OH/Shawnee) with a time of 1:59.50; and the 200-meter freestyle relay team of Bellus, Shoemaker, junior Ben Ball (Gallipolis, OH/Gallia Academy) and sophomore Jared Riffle (Gallipolis, OH/Gallia Academy) with a time of 1:56.26.

“We had a great week of training and everyone was swimming a little bit tired today. The men’s team still put together a nice meet and collectively had 17 seasonal best swims,” the WC coach said.

The Fightin’ Quakers compete in their last dual meet of the regular season Saturday at John Carroll.