GRANVILLE, Ohio -- Denison competed at the Kenyon Invitational on Saturday in what would be the final opportunity to post qualifying times for the NCAA Division III championship in March.
There were eight NCAA provisional qualifying time marks, or improvements set by the Big Red in Gambier. In the 500 freestyle, senior Jackson Humphrey swam the race for the first time this season and posted a 'B' cut time of 4:32.98, which is the third-best time in the event by a DU swimmer this year.
Nathan Thorne swam the 400 IM two times on Saturday, and improved his time in each race. In his final attempt, Thorne won the time trial and posted a 'B' cut time of 4:01.06. Dan Hellman was another DU swimmer who raced an event twice and improved. In the first 200 butterfly of the day he won the race and improved his time to 1:50.84. Later, in the 200 fly time trial, Hellman trimmed .43 off his provisional qualifying time with a time of 1:50.41.
Carlos Maciel recorded season-best cut times in two different events. In the 100 breaststroke he touched third in 57.65. That marked his first swim in that event this season. Teammate Ben Snader followed with a season-best time of 57.69.
In the 100 fly time trial, Maciel was swimming that race for the first time this year and he would go on to post the third-best time on the team this year, touching in 49.33.
In the 1650 freestyle time trial, PJ Fallon touched in 15:33.85, which was a five second improvement over his previous season-best. Denison's final 'B' cut and time improvement came from Gus Evans in the 200 breaststroke. He won the race in 2:02.93, trimming more than one half of a second off his previous best time.
