Henderson State Dual Meet Notes (PDF)

The Delta State Swimming and Diving team will honor its four seniors at the Delta State Aquatics Center Friday night on Senior Night, as Delta State hosts Henderson State in a dual meet. Seniors Wolfgang Mairinger, Kaci Bolls, Alexander Lorenz and Chris Ashton will lead the Statesmen and Lady Statesmen on senior night, as Delta State closes out the home strtch of the regular season meets.

The dual meet will be the third home event of the season for coach Dan'l Murray and the Delta State Swimming & Diving team. The event will be the final of four straight meets for the team in the state of Mississippi. Friday's event starts at 5 p.m.

Delta State defeated Ouachita Baptist for the first time in four years this past weekend as the men and women one the team overalls against the Tigersharks. The victory marked the first time that any of the players on the Statesmen and Lady Statesmen had beat OBU in their careers.

Delta State has excelled in the distance freestyle events this season, taking several victories, including multiple top-three sweeps. Seven times this season, Delta State has swept the endurance events.

Last week at the OBU dual meet, Wolfgang Mairinger, Chris Ashton, Gabriel Cruz, and Trevor Hopper took the top four spots in the 1000-Free. In the DSU Christmas Invitational, Vlad Zinca led Mairinger and Ben Vaughan in a podium sweep of the 500-free event.

At the UALR Xmas Invite, Zinca led the way again, as the men swept the 500-free event. At the Tunica Invitational, Zinca, Tobias Tombers and Vaughan swept the 400-Medley before Mairinger, Zinca, Vaughan, Ashton  and Yvan Nys took the top five spots in the 1000-Free.

The Lady Statesemen  also had a sweep in Tunica, as Maria Torres, Rebekah Napier-Jameson, Piper Marshburn, and Elizabeth Frye took the top four spots.

The Statesmen swim team swept the 1000-freestyle event at the Ouachita Baptist dual meet and took the top two spots in the 500-freestyle. Wolfgang Mairinger won both events at OBU.  Ashton and Cruz were second and third in the 1000-freestyle event and Vaughan finished second in the 500-freestyle.

While the Delta State Statesmen and Lady Statesmen swimmers have not secured any automatic bids ('A' cut times) to the National Championships thus far this season, several swimmers have swam times that have put them in contention for a bid at season's end. Eight Statesmen and Lady Statesmen find themselves with times in the top 25 nationally.

Vlad Zinca and Maria Torres lead the way with three a piece. Zinca has the sixth, 12th and 25th fastest times in the 200-Butterfly, 100-Butterfly, and 500-Free, respectively. Torres has the seventh, ninth and 13th fastest times in the 1650-Free, 1000-Free and 500-Free.

Dani Meerholz is the only other swimmer to have multiple top-25 times. Meerholz currently sits with the eighth fastest time in the 500-Free and 12th fastest time in the 200-Free. Heidi Nichols is the other Lady Statesmen to have a top-25 time, currently 14th in the 200-Breaststroke.

Wolfgang Mairinger (13th – 1650-Free), Ben Vaughan (20th – 1650-Free), Michael DuBose (21st – 200-Butterfly), and Yvan Nys (25th – 100-Back) represent the remaining Statesmen in the top 25 nationally.

The meet will be streamed live on GoStatesmen.com.