Wheeling, W. Va. – The 2023-2024 season has been a year of growth for the Wheeling University Men’s and Women’s Swimming teams. On Wednesday, that season of growth has led to this as the Cardinals head to the 2024 Mountain East Conference (MEC)/Great Midwest Athletic Conference (GMAC)Swimming & Diving Championships in Canton, Ohio. Both teams are looking to improve in the conference standings this season, while bringing home several All-MEC awards in their individual events.
In their final event of the regular season, the Cardinals hosted a dual meet against Penn State Behrend back on February 3rd. While both teams lost on the team side of the event, with the women falling 132-127 and the men falling 190.5-64.5, the Cardinals saw a lot of individual success on both sides of the pool. For the women, the team picked up nine individual wins on the day, and had three different swimmers take home wins in multiple events. On the men’s side the Cardinals would pick up wins in three events on the afternoon, while bringing home second place in four other events. After having a week off from competition, both teams look to come in rested and restored as they take on the best of the best across the conference.
The women’s swimming team was paced by Gabby Baiano, who would take home gold in three events, two individual and one relay. She continued her success in the long distance events, getting her first win of the day in the 1000-Yard Freestyle. She swam a time of 11:10.35, beating the rest of the field by more than 20 seconds to claim her first win. Her final individual win of the day also came in the distance events, as she took home first in the 500-Yard Freestyle with a time of 5:28.45. Her final win would come in the 400-Yard Freestyle Relay, where she teamed up with Jade Miller, Caitlin Oltman, and Sofia Castillo to get the win. Baiano took home two All-MEC awards at last year’s event and looks to continue her success in her second conference championship event.
For the men, it was graduate student Jiwh Santos who paced the Cardinal’s effort with two of the team’s three wins. Unlike Baiano, his success would come in the short distance events as he took gold in both the 100-Yard Backstroke and the 100-Yard Freestyle. His first gold came in the 100 Backstroke, where he swam a time of 54.09 and his second win came in the 100-Yard Freestyle, where he swam a 47.31. The other win on the day would come in the distance events, with Nathan Yost taking on the 1000-Yard Freestyle. Yost ended up swimming a time of 11:05.15, to beat his competition by eight seconds. Both swimmers have prior experience in this championship event, and will look to lead the Cardinals across the four days.
Last season, both teams saw upticks in their team scores and they look to continue to make that climb this season. The women’s team ended up placing 5th out of the nine teams, and third among MEC opponents, while the men took 9th overall and 6th in the MEC. With both teams featuring their largest rosters since the programs were brought back in 2020-2021, both teams are looking to climb the conference standings. For the women, they will be battling with Frostburg State for an MEC Championship while the men look to climb into the upper echelon of the conference standings.
Meet Details
The 2024 MEC/GMAC Swimming and Diving Championships will be a four-day event running from February 14th to February 17th at the C.T. Brannin Natatorium in Canton, Ohio. Each day will feature both a morning and an evening swim, with the preliminaries starting at 10 AM and the finals at 6 PM. After the morning swims, the top 24 in each event will move on to the finals at night. Swimmers #1 – #8 will compete in the A Final, #9 – #16 will compete in the B Final, and #17 – #24 will be in the C Final, with two alternates chosen in case of injury.
The Details
Day one of the 2024 MEC/GMAC Championships is set to begin on Wednesday, February 14th, with the preliminaries at 10 AM and the finals at 6 PM inside the C.T. Brannin Natatorium. You can watch the event live by clicking HERE.