GROVE CITY, Pa. (Feb. 16) – A conference title by sophomore
Jacob Dzurica and a record-setting performance by freshman
Liam Randolph highlighted the penultimate day of the 2024 Presidents' Athletic Conference Swimming Championships for the Bearcat men.
In all, Saint Vincent men produced eight top-8 performances during the Friday night session at Grove City College and head into the final day of the conference event in third place, with 414 points.
Less than 24 hours after placing runner-up in the conference's 50 freestyle finals, Dzurica continued his strong week b placing first in the finals of the 100 backstroke in a time of 50.79 seconds, the Bearcats' first individual PAC title of the week. Teammate
Anton Seifert won the consolation heat of the event and placed ninth overall in 57.8 seconds.
Randolph built upon his dazzling rookie season for the Bearcats by taking second overall in the 100 breaststroke in a school-record time of 57.04 seconds, breaking a five-year-old program mark previously established by Jacob Davis.
The Bearcats had two swimmers place in the top-8 of the 400 individual medley, with
Robert Harrington posting a time of 4:30.92 to take sixth, and
Jacob Bacasa touching in 4:36.57 to take eighth.
The results were similar for Saint Vincent in the 100 butterfly, as
Colin Spehar paced Saint Vincent with a sixth-place time of 53.24 seconds, and
Hayden Klein taking eighth in 55.24 seconds.
Alex Leskovansky led the SVC charge in the 200 freestyle, taking sixth in the finals in 1:49.87.
The Bearcats would close the evening out with a strong performance in the 400 medley relay, as Dzurica, Randolph, Spehar, and Harrington combined to post a time of 3:30.93 to take second in the finals.
Saint Vincent will enter the fourth and final night of the PAC Championships with a firm grip on third place, and within striking distance of second. Grove City leads the 7-team field with 714 points, while Westminster is second (456), followed by SVC (414), Washington & Jefferson (315), Chatham (140), Allegheny (93) and Bethany (6).
The final day of the 2024 PAC Championships will begin with preliminaries at 10 a.m. on Saturday, while finals are slated for 5 p.m. at Grove City College.
