GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. (Feb. 11, 2020) – Oklahoma Christian's men's swimming team broke through with its first event title and a handful of medal finishes last season at the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference Championships. The Eagles are looking to improve upon that effort in 2020.
OC will enter this year's RMAC meet – which will run from Wednesday through Saturday at Colorado Mesa's El Pomar Natatorium – with swimmers ranked in the top five in the league in seven events. OC also has two swimmers who already have met the NCAA Division II B-cut qualifying time in an event and three others who are oh-so-close to doing the same.
The Eagles also have swimmers who rank in the top 10 who figure to be in the mix to qualify for A finals, which would be key for OC to perhaps move up a spot to third in the five-team league after placing fourth in the team race last season and fifth the season before.
Nathan Braun, a freshman from Sycamore, Ill., is one of OC's top hopes. He already has posted a NCAA B-cut time in the 100-yard butterfly (48.92 seconds) and ranks second in the RMAC in that event, and ranks fifth in the 200 butterfly at 1:50.30, just. 17 off the NCAA B standard. Junior
Kurt Gscheidle of Lantana, Texas, and freshman
Elijah Tung of Columbia, S.C., rank 10th in the 100 butterfly and 200 butterfly, respectively.
Last year's RMAC freshman of the year,
Bergen Davis of Juneau, Alaska, is again in the mix in both backstroke events. He ranks third in the 200 backstroke with a top time of 1:48.54 (meeting the NCAA B standard) and fourth in the 100 backstroke at 50.27 seconds. Braun, meanwhile, ranks sixth in the 100 backstroke at 51.44 seconds.
In the breaststroke events, junior
Zac Hawes of Houston ranks fourth in the 100 breaststroke at 55.77 seconds, just .21 from the NCAA B standard. In the 200 breaststroke, he ranks fifth (2:02.61), with junior
Andrew Assaleh of Oklahoma City ninth at 2:07.08.
Tung is just .08 of a second off the NCAA B-cut in the 200 freestyle, ranking seventh in the league at 1:40.37. Sophomore
Andrew Ehler of Oak Point, Texas, could contend in the distance freestyle event, ranking eighth in the 1,650 freestyle (16:22.32) and 10th in the 500 freestyle (4:43.54). OC also has freshman
Ethan Hansbury of Greeley, Colo., who's ranked 10th in both the 1,000 and 1,650.
Freshman
Jacob Nixon of Livermore, Calif., has been the Eagles' top freestyle sprinter, ranking 13th in the 100 (46.19 seconds) and 17th in the 50 (21.35 seconds).
Ehler has posted the top 400 individual medley time for the Eagles this season, a 4:04.71 clocking that is fourth-best in the RMAC, while junior
Ryan Jennings is 10th in the 200 IM in 1:53.38.
Two longtime powerhouse programs, Colorado Mesa and Oklahoma Baptist, figure to be the favorites in the meet.
