FREDERICKSBURG, Va. — The Catholic University men's swimming and diving team dropped a tightly-contested duel meet to Mary Washington on Saturday afternoon.
The Cardinals fell narrowing in a meet that came down to the final event, the 400-yard freestyle relay. Despite the best efforts of Catholic's top relay team, they touched second to Mary Washington who ended up grabbing a narrow victory by just six points, 134-128.
Catholic won eight events on the day headlined by Nathan Ober who won two individual races and was a part of the 200-yard medley relay team that began the meet off with a victory.
Ober combined with Teddy Tsakumis, John Holler and Aiden Miller in a thrilling race. Tsakumis and Ober got Catholic out quickly before the Eagles attempted to chase Catholic down on the final two legs, but Miller's anchor of 22.01 was just quick enough to outtouch Mary Washington at the wall by .17 seconds.
Ober was also victorious in the 100- and 200-yard breastrokes. He won the 100 comfortably with a time of 59.56 before beating his teammate Jackson Hicks to the wall by a second in the 200. Ober touched in 2:13.21 while Hicks posted a time of 2:14.30.
Miller matched Ober with three total victories on the day, bringing home wins in the 100- and 200-yard freestyle events as well. The freshman outtouched Mary Washington's Will Burkey by just .12 seconds in the 100 courtesy of a 48.14 swim, just half a second off his personal best. He won the 200 by more than a second with a time of 1:46.11
Freshmen continued to have success as Tsakumis also picked up an individual victory in the 100-yard backstroke. After setting a new personal best yesterday against Marymount (Va.), he again bettered that mark, this time by nearly a full second as he swam to victory with a time of 53.70. Catholic dominated the distance events as Shawn Mashburn swam 4:58.08 in the 500 free to just barely beat his teammate Holler to the wall by .13 seconds. Mashburn also picked up a runner-up finish in the 1,000-yard freestyle, coming in behind Sean Kelty. Kelty produced a time of 10:04.22 while Mashburn followed him to the wall in 10:15.73.
Catholic won the first five events of the meet but Mary Washington battled back to earn the win. The Cardinals will now prepare for a home meet against DI Howard next Saturday at 1 p.m.
