WRC meet yields several notable time drops

A look at a few of the top performances by area swimmers and divers from invitationals this past week:

• Area individual winners at the Western Reserve Conference meet not already mentioned in coverage were Mayfield’s Clay Cunningham (50 free), Nick Cunningham (100 free), Hayden Palmer (500 free) and Kevin Morgan (100 breast) and Kenston’s Mary O’Neill (diving) and Clay Foster (diving).

• Individual runners-up were Chardon’s Katherine Jerry (100 and 200 free), Sarah Bennett (50 free and 100 back), Gracie Duchon (100 fly) and Campbell Tierney (500 free), Madison’s Mark Hribar (200 free), Zoey Fedele (200 IM) and Collin Douglas (200 IM and 100 breast), Mayfield’s Nick Cunningham (50 free), Katie Voronkin (diving), Nick Ede (diving), Clay Cunningham (100 fly) and Anthony Ferrante (500 free), Riverside’s Edgar Kokos (100 free), Kenston’s Billy Glime (100 back) and North’s Rachel Dempsey (100 breast).

• Clay Cunningham’s 22.38 in 50 free was a .31 drop from when he was third at the Division I SPIRE Sectional a year ago and just .04 off his winning WRC swim in the event in 2018.

• Morgan’s 1:00.76 in 100 breast was highly encouraging, featuring a 32.25 closer. That 32.25 marks a .89 cut vs. D-I district last winter, when he was 12th. The overall time is a 1.60 drop from when he was sixth last month at the Viking Invitational.

• O’Neill recorded a score of 438.50 to capture diving, which is a 26-point improvement from when she took second at the D-I Cleveland State District last season.

• Tierney’s 500 free runner-up time was a 5:31.58, which was a 7.75 drop from when she was third at WRC as a freshman last winter. Of particular note was a 33.50 fifth split this year, as opposed to a 35.01 fifth split last season.

• Fedele went 2:14.06 to take second in 200 IM, which marked a 3.01 drop from when she was 10th in the event at Viking. Her 39.38 breast split was 1.27 faster than Viking.

• Douglas was second in 200 IM with a 2:06.09, which is a 2.72 cut vs. last year’s D-I SPIRE Sectional, when he was seventh. His 25.09 fly split was a 1.88 drop from the 2018 WRC meet.

• Glime hit a 55.19 in 100 back, already .81 faster than when he earned an automatic berth out of the D-I SPIRE Sectional a year ago, when he took second. He went 26.61 on his opening 50 as he tried to challenge Riverside’s Charles Marshall. That is a .73 drop from that aforementioned sectional.

• En route to a 1:13.36 for second in 100 breast, Dempsey hit a 33.98 opener. That is a .70 cut vs. her D-I sectional swim last season.

• With 12 different individual-event champions this season, there have now been 42 swimmers in PAC/ WRC meet history who have won individual events.

• The Mentor girls had several top fives at the Greater Cleveland Conference meet: Mallory Dondorfer (second, 200 free and 100 back), Summer Mastandrea (first, 500 free and third, 200 free), Annika Carlson (third, 500 free and fourth, 200 free), Sam McCarthy (fifth, 100 fly), Haley Howell (fifth, 100 back) and Erin Farmer (fourth, 100 breast).