Marks Claims Second Individual Title on Final Day of MWC Championships

By: Both Illinois College teams ended in sixth place at the 2018 Midwest Conference Championships.

Sunday Results
Complete MWC Championships Results GRINNELL, Iowa

– From the time that the Illinois College swimming team was re-instituted in 2007, it took 11 years to put a swimmer atop the podium at the Midwest Conference Championships. To have it happen a second time took less than 24 hours. Hannah Marks won her second individual event on Sunday and the teams closed out the year with two more school records as both the Blueboys and Lady Blues ended in sixth place at the MWC Championships.

Sunday's finals began with a sixth-place finish for Martin Ambre in the 1650 Freestyle. Ambre produced the second-fastest time in school history with a 17:14.47. Nick Amodeo was 16th in the mile as well with a 20:41.96. For the Lady Blues, Maddie Headtke was 16th in 20:24.24, also the second-fastest time in school history.

In the 200 Backstroke, Hannah Baker qualified for the 'A' final earlier in the day with a time of 2:18.70. On Sunday evening, she ended in seventh place by lowering her time to 2:17.81 and setting a new school record.

Illinois College had two representatives in the 'B' finals of the 100 Freestyle. Mike Weisenfelder ended in 14th for the Blueboys in 49.86 seconds. Lindsay Bruce clocked in at 56.28 seconds in the prelims for a school record and then finished 15th in the 'B' final on the women's side in 57.15 seconds.

The biggest event of the night for IC was in the 200 Breaststroke. The Blueboys put Ben Allen and Oak Wattanasirakul into the 'A' final and Nick Smith into the 'B' final of the event. Marks crushed the competition in prelims, outpacing the field by nearly six seconds. Smith then took 15th for the men with a time of 2:30.26. Allen and Wattanasirakul finished third and fifth, respectively, with Allen dropping more than two seconds from his time in the prelims and clocking a 2:12.49. Wattanasirakul was close behind in 2:13.11.

With the men's event completed, all eyes turned to the women's 200 Breaststroke. Nearly every qualifier for the 'A' final dropped their times in the night session, but Marks was still head and shoulders above the competition. Her winning time of 2:27.49 set a new school record and claimed the conference crown by more than five seconds.

The final individual event for the weekend was the 200 Butterfly. The IC teams were represented by Elijah Rhoad and Marcella Jacquemain in each 'A' final. Rhoad took fourth overall in the MWC with a 2:02.59 and Jacquemain recorded a time of 2:32.07 to place seventh.

The final event of the championships was the 400 Freestyle Relay. The Blueboy team of Allen, Rhoad, Weisenfelder and Ambre swam the second-fastest time in program history, 3:19.59, to take sixth place.

Wattanasirakul closed his career by being named the Elite 20 Award winner for men's swimming. The Blueboy senior was crowned as the top performing student in the conference for the third consecutive year.