The Simon Fraser University swim teams hosted the University of Tokei, Japan in a final opportunity for swimmers to qualify for the NCAA Div. II national championships.
The Clan won 22 of 35 events against Tokei at the Margaret and Paul Savage Pool, but the team won’t find out until later this week just how many swimmers made qualifying standards for the national championship that begins March 11 in Indianapolis, Indiana.
SFU freshman Adrian VanderHelm set an SFU all-time record in the 400-metre individual medley, winning in four minutes 21.10 seconds, breaking Niels Muntzenburger’s Clan record by more than eight seconds. VanderHelm, a native of Barrie, Ont., has already qualified for the national championships in the men’s 200-meter freestyle. VanderHelm also won the 100m freestyle in 50:14.
“Adrian is swimming well, the IM is not an event we have prepared him for, and he set the school record,” said Clan head coach Liam Donnelly in a school press release. “He’s having a phenomenal year.”
The team from Japan featured world-ranked breaststroker Rie Keneto, who won the women’s 50-, 100-, and 200m races against the Clan.
“We have been trying to project where we will have to be to qualify (for NCAAs) and a couple of our swimmers didn’t get there,” said Donnelly, “so this dual meet was bittersweet. There were a lot of personal bests and lots of dual meet records broken, but when you come up a little short on some of those swims where we were hoping to qualify for nationals, it makes those successes not feel quite as good because we wanted just a little bit more.”
“We wanted to qualify more swimmers and we felt like the team was ready to push through,” added Donnelly
Swimmers from across Div. II can compete in three events at the nationals and those that have qualified in more than three will have to declare which ones they will compete in at nationals, opening up opportunities for the next highest ranked swimmers.
Donnelly is confident that five and maybe as many as 10 Clan swimmers may earn their way to Indianapolis. Although they did not make the A standard, Clan swimmers such as Nicole Cossey, Lauren Swistak, Carmen Nam and Maran Kokoszka may be ranked high enough to ultimately book a ticket to the nationals. In addition, the women’s 400m free relay team was ranked No. 3 heading into the conference meets this weekend.
“On the women’s side, we may have some surprises and we may qualify more than we have anticipated, but we will have to wait for all of the results from the weekend meets to come in before we know,” said Donnelly.
On the men’s side, swimmers such as Gabriel Lee, Dimitar Ivanov and Justin Kiedrzyn of New Westminster will also be waiting to find out if the meet against Japan was their final one of the season or if they will be off to Indianapolis.
“It would have been nice to swim fast enough to get the standards or to be ranked high enough to get selected, and that was what we were hoping for with this meet,” said Donnelly. “We are sitting in a space where there is a chance but, how likely it is, we don’t know yet.”
