GREENSBORO, Va. — ODAC swimmers spent five days at their home-away-from-home at the Greensboro Aquatic Center this week as 11 of the league's best took to the pool at the Division III Swimming & Diving Championships in Greensboro, N.C. They left the ODAC championship host venue with 13 combined All-American awards.
Each of those high honors came from the men's side of the ledger with Washington and Lee University's six-man contingent of Charles Byars, Harrison Cerone, Leighton Chapman, Matthew Fritz, Dalton Jobe, and Luke Nagel joined by Zachary Erb, the first-ever national qualifier for Bridgewater College swimming. Four women, all from Washington and Lee, qualified for the national championships. Those Generals included Amelia Maloof, Vivian Pickeral, Myla Rice, and Bella Tarbet.
All four women competed in the 200-yard freestyle and 200-yard medley relays, finishing 25th overall in both. They were hoping to fare better in the 400-yard freestyle relay on the championship's final day, but they were disqualified following competition in the prelims of the event on Saturday morning.
WLU's Jobe and Nagel each return to Lexington with three All-American awards in the 200-yard freestyle as well as 800-yard and 400-yard freestyle relays with teammates Byars and Chapman in the latter two events. BC's Erb picked up two All-American awards highlighted by a third-place finish in the 100-yard breaststroke. He not only was the highest ODAC finisher in an event this season, but his third-place effort is the best for an ODAC swimming since former WLU star Tommy Thetford won national titles in the 100-yard and 200-yard freestyles and finished as the runner-up in 50-yard freestyle in 2016.
The Generals' Fritz accounts for the remaining All-American honor with his fifth-place podium spot in the 100-yard butterfly, matching Jobe in the 200-yard freestyle for highest WLU individual finisher.
Below we take a look at all the action from each of the conference's 11 competitors.