Tiger Swimming & Diving Caps Wooster Invite With Strong Final Day

Wittenberg Women's Swimming and Diving Sophie Paskiet — Sophie Paskiet | Photo by John Coffman

December 7, 2024

WOOSTER, OH - It was the perfect way to end the first half of the 2024-25 season. The Wittenberg men's and women's swimming and diving teams turned in another day full of strong individual performances at the Wooster Invitational, sending the Tigers into a break from competition with plenty of momentum.

Wittenberg's women finished the three-day meet right where they started - in fifth place with a total of 748 points. The Tiger men finished eighth with 240 points. On the final day, the Tigers piled up five more personal best times, highlighted by a pair of second-place finishes.

Teagan O'Connor (Fort Wayne, IN/Carroll) rounded out her tremendous weekend with a second-place finish in the 200-yard butterfly with a time of 2:09.22 that is the second-fastest in program history. Also finishing second for the Tigers on the final day was Sophie Paskiet (Toledo, OH/St. Ursula) in the 200-yard breaststroke with a time of 2:27.19.

Wittenberg's women had two other competitors who qualified for the top flight final as Lilly Cook (Rensselaer, IN/Rensselaer Central) took sixth place in the 200-yard backstroke in a time of 2:14.78 and Shania Stone (Cincinnati, OH/Princeton) finished sixth in the 100-yard freestyle in a time of 53.79. In addition, the women's 400 medley relay quartet of Cook, Bekah Lebold (Mount Vernon, OH/Mount Vernon), McKenna Clark (Waynesville, OH/Carroll), and Stone took sixth place in a time of 3:46.22, more than 10 seconds better than their seed time from the prelims.

Clark took 11th in the 100-yard freestyle, Lebold finished 12th in the 100-yard Individual Medley, and Addy Payne (Sidney, OH/Sidney) added a pair of top-20 performances in the 200-yard butterfly and the 1650-yard freestyle.

On the men's side, the top finish came from Owen Gabel (New Bremen, OH/New Bremen), who competed in his first 11-dive meet and earned ninth place in the 1-meter event. The next-best finish for the Tiger men came from the 400-yard freestyle quartet of Mason Steen (Leroy, OH/Riverside), Nathan Rabun (Marion, OH/Wynford), Orry Farrington (Waterville, OH/Anthony Wayne), and Gabel that finished 13th in a time of 3:27.50, almost 13 seconds faster than the prelims seed time.

Steen added a 17th-place finish in the 200-yard breaststroke to round out the Tigers' top point-scorers.