INDIANAPOLIS - Three more IUPUI records were set Friday night at the Horizon League Swimming & Diving Championships as the Jaguars kept rolling.
Spencer Jyawook struck gold in the men's 100-yard butterfly with a program-best time of 46.34, defeating Cleveland State's Bob Fick (47.55) and Mack Flowers of Oakland (47.65). Jyawook out-touched his rivals by at least half a body length in a commanding performance.
Logan Kelly set a new meet record of 52.38 in the men's 100 breaststroke prelims, and his marginally slower time in the finals (52.43) was still enough to claim victory over Oakland's Christian Bart (53.02) and Griffin Manning of Cleveland State (53.60). Kelly finished strong, pulling away from Bart and Manning in the last 25 yards of his race.
The night ended for IUPUI with another gargantuan relay breakthrough. Kelly (breaststroke) and Jyawook (butterfly) teamed up with
Nick Cavanah (backstroke) and
Kevin Burke (freestyle) to swim the 400 medley relay in 3:13.58, destroying the previous Jaguar record by about four seconds. IUPUI originally finished third behind Oakland and Cleveland State (3:12.64), but moved up to silver after Oakland was disqualified.
"Today was about sheer determination," said head coach
Damion Dennis. "Pure guts. The guys on that relay [in particular] stepped up and threw themselves into the fire. You have to risk big to be rewarded big, and they did."
On the women's side,
Emmaleigh Zietlow clawed her way to bronze in the 200 freestyle. Tonight the freshman was unable to match her school record time of 1:49.23 from Wednesday's 800 free relay and found herself in a middling position throughout the first 150 yards. Zietlow dug deep, showing the grit that Dennis spoke of to finish third in a respectable 1:51.34. Cleveland State's Ana Sousa prevailed in 1:50.59 and fellow Viking Rachel Contich won silver in 1:50.92.
When asked what Zietlow brings to the Jaguars, Dennis was effusive in his praise. "Amazing awesomeness," he gushed. "'Easy money sniper' is what I call her. If we have a stereotypical athlete for the future of the program that we talk about in terms of work ethic, personality, academics and all the other intangible things that you can't coach, she's it."
Zietlow's fellow freshman, Kelly, resembles her in terms of his dogged work ethic and potential in swimming. Described by Dennis as an "alpha competitor", the Minnesota native analyzed his performance with maturity beyond his years.
"I was really happy with my prelims," Kelly said. "My arms were just shot at finals so I couldn't go any faster, but I only gained five-hundredths [of a second] so I'll take it. My relay split was not quite what I wanted—I would have really loved to be under 52 [seconds], but we'll take getting second and it was a good swim overall."
Sadie Smith and
Isabella Smith also competed tonight in the women's 1-meter event. Sadie finished fourth with 265.25 points and Isabella came eighth with 224.85. The podium looked identical to Wednesday night's 3-meter event: UIC's Cydney Liebenberg took gold (308.80 points), followed by McKenzie Sanchez of Milwaukee (285.85) and Oakland's Elle Chalifoux (279.45).
The Horizon League Championships conclude Saturday with the 1650-yard freestyle, 200 backstroke, 100 freestyle, 200 breaststroke, 200 butterfly, men's 3-meter diving and the 400 free relay. Zietlow looks forward to a strong finish for the Jaguars, as do her teammates.
"Obviously, trying to score as many points as possible is the goal," she said in anticipation. "But it's also just coming together at the end in that 400 freestyle relay and seeing what we can do. It's all about the team at that point and we're all going to give our best effort. I'm super, super excited."
ESPN+ will have the finals at 5:30 PM ET.
