George Washington University
Magnus Cup Invitational
Men's Swim & Dive Takes Third at Magnus Cup
11/20/2016 12:00:00 AM | Men's Swimming and Diving
CLEVELAND - The George Washington men's swimming and diving team finished third out of nine squads at the three-day Magnus Cup Invitational hosted by Cleveland State.
The host Vikings won the meet with 1,608.5 points, followed by Xavier (1,320.5). GW amassed 799.5 points and finished ahead of Indiana University of Pennsylvania (579.5), Saginaw Valley State University (547.5), Cumberlands (512.5), West Virginia Tech (472) Colgate (301) and Fairmont State University (260).
"It was a good three days for us in Cleveland for our men's team," said second-year head coach James Winchester. "The weekend was highlighted by the wins on the 1-meter for Jake Ortiz yesterday and today's victory in the mile for Shawn Lemarie."
An impressive 20 different Colonials advanced to individual finals on Sunday and freshmen Shawn Lemarie, Emils Pone, Andrew Cho, Max Forstenhaeusler, sophomores Patrick Lersch and Alexander Auster, and junior Gustav Hokfelt returned for a pair of individual finals.
The final day of competition was highlighted by a tremendous showing in the 1,650-yard freestyle, where Lemarie won the event in 15:48.34, followed by Alex Cronin in second with a time of 15:56.29. Both rookies broke into GW's all-time top-10 list with their performances, sliding into fourth and eighth, respectively. Senior Liam Huffman took fifth in 16:10.06, while juniors Clarke Indek and Connor Hart placed 15th (16:46.02) and 16th (16:50.69), respectively.
"Great performances in our mile swims today," said Winchester. "Tip of the cap to our endurance speed coach Katie Stefl doing great work there with our 1-2 performances out of Shawn and Alex and also Liam Huffman right on his end-of-season times from last year."
Lemarie rounded out his day with a 15th-place finish in the 200 butterfly in 1:57.27 behind sophomore Josh Monaceeli's 14th-place performance in 1:56.96. Senior Ben Fitch took 21st in the event in 1:57.07.
Cho also posted a stellar day in the pool, touching the wall second in the 200 backstroke (1:51.09). His preliminary time of 1:50.01 put him seventh on GW's all-time list. Hokfelt placed seventh in 1:52.48 in the event, followed by Pone's 11th-place time of 1:54.25 and sophomore Nicolas Reeves' 13th-place finish in 1:56.96.
The Colonials also excelled in the 50 back as Hokfelt led the way with a third-place finish in 23.68. Cho was close behind in 23.82 to take fourth and Pone followed suit in fifth (24.15). Senior Ryan O'Malley also posted a strong performance, taking 13th in 27.42.
Forstenhaeusler led the a pack of Colonials in the 100 free with this fourth-place finish in 45.75 - good fourth ninth on GW's all-time list. Junior Adam Drury also competed in the A final, taking 10th overall in 46.77. Auster took 21st in the event (46.73) followed by Lersch (47.77).
GW notched another pair of top-10 efforts in the 50 fly as Auster tied for fifth in 23.07 and Forstenhaeusler grabbed seventh (23.12). Junior Aneil Srivastava took 14th in 24.61.
Lersch rounded out a strong day individually with a ninth-place finish in the 100 IM in 54.53.
A trio of Colonials also returned for finals action in the 200 breaststroke. Senior Bogdan Balteanu finished in 17th with a time of 2:15.51, followed by freshmen Karan Mahadev (22nd, 2:17.11) and Kyle Hrabovsky (2:25.64).
The Colonials concluded the meet with a strong fifth-place finish in the 400 free relay as the team of Forstenhaeusler, Drury, Auster and Hokfelt clocked in at 3:05.22.
"Overall as a team we definitely came up wanting to race and we rested up and suited up and the results definitely show," said Winchester. "We needed a big weekend of racing and our student-athletes got the job done. We're excited to get back to work in DC and hopefully we can have a good end of the year."
GW will now take a hiatus form competition until the spring semester when the Colonials host Georgetown and A-10 foe George Mason on Jan. 13 and 14, respectively, at the Charles E. Smith Center.
Players Mentioned
