Tartans Start Competition at Nike Invitational

Nov. 29 – (GAMBIER, Ohio) – Carnegie Mellon University’s men’s swimming team is on the road at the Nike Invitational hosted by Kenyon College with a crowd of Division I schools including University of Pennsylvania, University of Kansas, Colgate University, and Davidson College. Johns Hopkins University and Washington & Lee University are the other Division III schools in attendance. Thursday night’s events included the 1,650-yard freestyle and the 800-yard freestyle relay.

Junior Tom McConnell (Baltimore, Md./Friends School of Baltimore) finished 11th in the 1,650-yard freestyle and with that finish knocked seven seconds off his previous career-best with a time of 16:18.98 which is also a NCAA “B” cut qualifying mark. Sophomores Gates Winkler (Pasadena, Calif./Polytechnic) and Jonas Altman-Kurosaki (New York, N.Y./Stuyvesant) also swam the 1,650 event finishing 15th and 16th, respectively.

The 800-yard freestyle relay team of freshmen Alex Hanson (Burnsville, Minn.) and Josh Mathews (Upper Falls, Md./Perry Hall), and seniors Patrick Snyder (Marlton, N.J./St. Joseph’s Prep) and Michael Bailey (New Kent, Va.) finished 10th with a time of 7:00.68. It is the first time the Tartans have swam the 800-yard relay in a meet this year and their time is just two seconds off the “B” cut qualifying mark.

The meet continues with prelims at 10:00 a.m. Saturday and finals set to start at 6:00 p.m. The event lineup includes the 200-yard freestyle relay, 200-yard butterfly, 200-yard freestyle, 100-yard breaststroke, 100-yard backstroke, 400-yard IM, 50-yard freestyle and the 400-yard medley relay.