SAVANNAH, Ga. — The Ave Maria Gyrenes' swim team competed in the Savannah College of Art and Design Invitational this past weekend. The Gyrenes broke a lot of personal and seasonal bests over the course of three days and continued to show improvement throughout the season. The highlight of the weekend was that the Gyrenes broke three school records in relay races.
Day 1
The first two swimmers to set season bests on Thursday were Anna Repasi and Brooke Mandziuk in the women's 500-yard freestyle. Repasi broke six minutes for the first time of the season, clocking in at 5:58.85, while Mandziuk made big strides with a time of 6:15.94. Sarah Hicks was the other Gyrene to swim in that race and finished right in between the other two swimmers, with a time of 6:03.04.
In the men's 500-yard freestyle, Seth Sproule qualified for the NAIA provisional time with a 4:51.04. This makes him eligible to compete in this event during the NAIA National Championships in March. The other two AMU swimmers in that race, Ryan Pritchard and Francesco Salvi, both set season bests Thursday and are close to breaking their personal records.
In the next event, Kalia Clary set a season best in the women's 200-yard individual medley with a time of 2:27.73.
In the women's 50-yard freestyle, two Gyrenes finished with their best times not just of the season, but of their entire career. Maryanna Matista was way under the 27-second barrier with a 26.15 and Helen Carey clocked in at 27.04.
The men's version of the event also saw two Gyrenes set personal records, with Pete Anderson finishing the race in 22.08 seconds and Brendan McCormack touching the pad at 22.98. It was the first time McCormack broke 23 seconds. Anderson is really close to swimming the race in under 22 seconds and both Coach Alan Webb and Josh Harriot are confident he can do that.
Finally, the night ended in historic fashion for the Ave Maria swim program. In the men's 4x200-yard freestyle relay, Sam Pilkington, Seth Sproule, Ryan Pritchard, and Pete Anderson posted the fastest time in school history, swimming the race in 7:17.33. They edged the previous record, which was set earlier this calendar year in last season's conference championship, by 1.54 seconds.
Day 2
The Gyrenes continued to show improvement in their races on Friday. In the morning session, Brooke Mandziuk shattered her personal best in the 200-yard freestyle. The sophomore from Oxford, Michigan finished the race for the first time under 2:20 and clocked in at 2:19.49.
In the men's preliminary of the 200-yard freestyle, both Pete Anderson and Seth Sproule swam under the NAIA provisional time, with Anderson setting a season best at 1:45.50 and Sproule setting a personal best at 1:47.36.
In the penultimate event of the morning session, Brooke's sister, Audrey Mandziuk, set a season best in the 100-yard backstroke, finishing with a time of 1:18.93. She beat her seed time by almost two seconds.
In the finals for Day 2, Ryan Pritchard and Justin Blaine got the Gyrenes started with seasonal and personal bests respectively in the 400-yard individual medley. Pritchard finished more than five seconds faster than his preliminary time clocking in at 4:23.98. Pritchard closed strong in the race, swimming the final 50 yards of the freestyle section in under 30 seconds. Blaine set a personal best with a time of 4:32.69, beating his preliminary time by three seconds.
A couple of events later, Maryanna Matista set a personal record in the 100-yard butterfly with a time of 1:03.48. Matista finished third in the C-final of that event.
The day ended with a couple of season bests in the women's 100-yard backstroke. Kalia Clary and Sarah Hicks both swam their fastest backstrokes of the year with 1:13.31 and 1:15.38 respectively. Clary finished third in the C-final of that race with Hicks finishing fifth.
Day 3
In the final day of competition at the SCAD Invitational, the Gyrenes kept breaking their own personal bests and finished the weekend with two more school records.
In the prelims, Kaila Clary broke a minute for the first time in her career in the 100-yard freestyle. Clary swam a 59.13 and was the fastest Gyrene in the race.
In the men's race, Pete Anderson hit a NAIA provisional time and broke his personal best with a 48.47. Anderson also finished in the top 16 of that race was entered into the B-final of the 100-yard freestyle in the evening session.
In the finals for Saturday, Anderson did not let his new PR sit for very long as he set a new record again just a few hours later. He swam the 100 yards in 47.50 seconds and finished fourth in the B-final.
Also in the evening session, four AMU swimmers set new records for themselves in the 1650-yard freestyle. In the women's race, both Sarah Hicks and Anna Repasi broke their personal bests, with Hicks finishing under 21 minutes with a 20:59.68 and Repasi just a few seconds behind her with a 21:04.65. In the men's race, Ryan Pritchard set a season best with a 16:57.80 and finished in the top 16. Seth Sproule was right behind with a 17:05.70, which was good for a new personal best. Both time for Pritchard and Sproule were NAIA provisional times.
The weekend ended on a high note with both the men's and women's teams setting a new school record in the 400-yard freestyle. The women's team swam first and finished just a few hundredths of a second over four minutes with a 4:00.74. The fastest split in the race was the anchor Maryanna Matista's first lap, clocking in at 27.73. The women's time was almost ten seconds faster than the previous school record, which was set just two weeks ago at the Georgia Small Colleges Championships.
The men's team then took to the pool and also broke the school record. They finished the race in 3:16.65, two seconds faster than the previous record which was also set in the at the Georgia Small Colleges Championships. The fastest split of the race for the Gyrenes was the opening lap which Anderson swam in 22.91 seconds.
At the end of the Invitational, the Gyrenes sat towards the bottom of the standings, with the women's team finishing last and the men's team finishing next to last, but the many new seasonal and personal records show that the AMU swimmers are continuing to improve. Ave Maria has one more meet, a dual meet with Rollins College January 13, 2023, before heading to Columbus, Georgia for the SUN Conference Championships in February.
