‘Everyone swam their hearts out’
Acadia swimmers place second in AUS championship
The Acadia swimming team bettered last year’s AUS Swimming championship medal haul of 21 with 33 medals this past weekend. The Axemen and Axewomen finished second in their respective gender category and second overall.
“The team came together after an amazing season of commitment to training. The guys team was in tough all weekend and actually held the lead once on Friday and once on Saturday,” said head coach Gary MacDonald.
“We actually outscored Dalhousie in Sunday’s final but Dal’s strength on Day Two kept them ahead. It was an incredible weekend and everyone swam their hearts out.”
Brett Liem was chosen as the AUS Male Swimmer of the Meet and first-year Acadia swimmer Josh Nowlan was named the Male Rookie of the Meet.
The women’s team also came up big and easily outscored all other teams for a huge second place finish as well.
The Axewomen finished second overall in the women’s division and the Axemen finished a close second to Dalhousie. Acadia finished second in the combined scoring.
Five Acadia swimmers will be attending the U SPORTS championship Feb. 22-24 at the University of Toronto, including Brett Liem, Alison MacEachern, Jessica Pelletier, Kelsea Vessey and Hannah Doiron.
Medal winners:
Kelsea Vessey – Gold 200m butterfly, Silver 200m freestyle, Silver 100m butterfly, Bronze 800m freestyle
Jessica Pelletier – Gold 100m backstroke, Silver 50m backstroke
Alison MacEachern – Silver 50m butterfly, Bronze 100m butterfly, Bronze 50m freestyle
Benjamin Henger – Silver 50m backstroke, Silver 100m butterfly, Silver 100m backstroke, Bronze 200m individual medley
Hannah Doiron – Bronze 100m breaststroke
Brett Liem – Gold 50m breaststroke, Gold 50m butterfly, Gold 50m freestyle, Silver 100m freestyle
Adam Deutsch – Gold 200m breaststroke, Gold 100m breaststroke, Silver 400m individual medley, Silver 200m individual medley
Chris Johnson – Bronze 100m breaststroke
Isaiah Grambo – Silver 50m butterfly, Bronze 100m butterfly
Patrick Henger – Silver 200m butterfly
Joshua Nowlan – Bronze 1500m freestyle
Relays:
Silver – 400m Women’s freestyle relay
Silver – 400m Men’s freestyle relay
Silver – 800m Women’s freestyle relay
Silver – 800m Men’s freestyle relay
Silver - 400m Men’s medley relay
Silver – 400m Women’s medley relay
Atlantic University Sport swimming awards announced
Two of the Atlantic University Sport 2017-2018 swimming major award recipients are from Acadia.
Acadia’s Brett Liem of Bedford was named the male AUS swimmer of the year, while coach Gary MacDonald was named the AUS men’s swimming coach of the year.
Liem, a second- year science student, had an exceptional season in the pool for the Acadia Axemen. He is the first-ever swimmer from the Acadia Axemen to earn the honour. In his inaugural season last year, Liem also earned AUS rookie of the year nods.
This season, he reached the podium in nearly every race he entered, earning six gold medals, eight silver and three bronze. At the Kemp- Fry AUS Invitational meet hosted by Dalhousie in November, Liem won gold in the 50m freestyle with a time of 22.80, breaking an AUS conference and Acadia school record and qualifying for the U SPORTS championship. He broke another Acadia school record in the 100m freestyle at the same meet.
MacDonald is in his third year at the helm of the Acadia swim- ming program and it is his first time to be chosen for the award.
MacDonald coached the Axemen to four second-place team finishes at AUS invitational meets this season. In the Dalhousie Winter Invitational meet, the Axemen nipped at the heels of the defending champion Tigers, narrowing the gap between their team scores to less than 10 points.
Hailing from Mission, B. C., MacDonald is a long-time coach and former Olympian. At the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal, Que., he captured a silver medal in the 400m medley relay.
Prior to joining the Acadia coaching staff, he served as an assistant coach under David Fry for the Dalhousie Tigers. He also coached the Halifax Trojan Aquatic club for 21 years.
The AUS award winners were selected by the conference’s six head coaches and presented during an awards luncheon hosted by the University of New Brunswick during the swim championships.