FEDERAL WAY, Wash.  FEDERAL WAY, Wash.  Whitman College's women's swim team, for the second consecutive season, has finished the Northwest Conference championship meet with the league's crown in hand.

The Blues women won their first title in 2017 then defended that championship over the weekend at the King County Aquatic Center, seizing the lead for good at the end of the first night of the three-day affair.

Sunday evening's finals session was a prolonged crowning of the champions as the Blues women won a pair of individual events, nabbed the second-place spot in two others, and capped the night with a victory lap in the final event, the 400-yard freestyle relay.

Whitman's men battled in third and fourth place for much of the meet, but the Blues crept up on second place Sunday, and wrested it away from Linfield in the final event by earning first place in the 400 free relay after the Wildcats' winning entry was disqualified for a faulty relay exchange.

The 1,650-yard free kicked off the night and by the end of the mile swims Whitman's women had pushed two swimmers into the top eight while the men earned points from eighth and 12th-place finishes.

Sophomore Sarah Davidson finished in second place -- for the second consecutive season -- with a time of 17 minutes, 49.65. And completing what became a monster meet for the sophomore, Abbey Felley slashed 23 seconds off her seed time to earn an eighth place with a clocking of 18:35.58.

Another sophomore, Lucas Bergeson, earned championship points in the men's mile, posting a seventh-place time (16:57.46) that ranks as the fifth fastest all-time in Whitman history. Fellow sophomore Alex Izbiky trimmed…cut…chopped nearly a minute off his season best to finish 12th in a time of 17:25.70.

The Whitman women, in a rare instance over the three days of competition, had to rely solely on quality in the 200 backstroke finals, rather than the quality and quantity it had enjoyed all weekend.

Sophomore Mara Selznick shouldered that burden well, racing to a second-place finish in the event with a time of 2:04.19, allowing the Blues to keep the pressure on second-place Pacific Lutheran.

Teddy Larkin leaped into the water for the consolation heat of the 200 back and ended his swim with a 12th-place time of 2:01.75 that earned five points -- accenting with the meet's finish the importance of every place and every point.

Colin Aslett took his next, jumping in for the championship heat in which he improved his prelims placing by one to finish fourth with a time of 1:53.87. That swim is now the second fastest all-time in Whitman history.

All meet long Whitman displayed prowess in the freestyle events, and Sunday's 100 free finals were no different.

Leading up to the event the Blues women had won the 200 and 800 free relays, earned the title in the 50 free with first-year Zoë Hill's win, and took second, fifth and sixth in the 200 free.

Sunday's championship heat of the 100 free set teammates against each other as Tara Stahlecker, Hill and Gaby Thomas were seeded first, second and third after the prelims.

Stahlecker and Hill battled down the to touch -- literally -- with Hill picking up her second title by winning the 100 in a time of 52.84 seconds, with Stahlecker in second by 1/100th of a second. Thomas (54.00) finished seventh in the heat, and adding points from the consolation final was Melia Matthews (54.58) who finished 11th overall in the event.

On the men's side, the Blues had won the 800 free relay, placed second in the 200 free relay, and picked up a second place in the individual 50 and a first place in the 200, both from Clark Sun.

Now stepping up behind the blocks of the men's championship final of the 100, Sun and Jared Sears were looking to continue the proud showing in the free events.

Prior to their heat, in the consol final Easton Powell (49.12) and Noah Schlenk (48.18) finished 15th and 12th, respectively, continuing the theme of 'every point is important.'

Now it was Sun's and Sears' turn. Sears (46.65) jumped up two spots from his prelims seed to take fourth while Sun had no 'up' to go as the top seed, and he answered the call by winning the championship final with an NCAA provisional qualifying 'B' time of 44.91 seconds -- earning the senior his fourth consecutive NWC 100 free crown.

Though the freestylers put on a show, the swimmers in the stroke events weren't understudies.

The 200 breaststroke finals saw only three Whitman women and three men in the evening races. But, all six had advanced out of the prelims to take up nearly half of the spots available in their respective championship finals.

The women went first.

First-year Miranda Williams had earlier in the meet entered the evening finals with the top seed in the shorter breaststroke race, only she was unable to hold onto that position. This time around was different as a measured approach to the opening 100 left enough closing energy for the back half of the race as she slipped past the race leader in the final 50 yards -- her split of 37.13 seconds was the fastest of all the finalists – to capture the win with an NCAA 'B' cut.

Teammates Becca Hoffman (2:28.58) and Amanda Li (2:30.37) piled on Williams' performance with sixth and seventh place swims, respectively.

Jonah Rodewald, Kieran Lenssen and Keith Nussbaum had made it into the men's championship heat of the 200, and they, too, piled on with points for their team.

Rodewald finished second with a time of 2:07.85, out-touching Lenssen in third by 3/100ths of a second. Nussbaum (2:10.13) improved two spots from his seeding to finish sixth overall.

That left the 200 butterfly on the schedule as the final individual event.

Whitman's women were represented by a pair of first-years making their initial NWC meet finals appearances. Erin Tyler (2:17.70) moved up two spots during her consolation heat final to finish in a tie for 13th overall, and then Leah Petrini (2:15.49) brought home a seventh-place finish in the championship final.

In the men's 200 fly, Fisher Munro took the mantle as the lone Blues swimmer, and he held his fifth-place seed in the championship final by touching the pad in 1:55.87.

Entering the final relays the Whitman women were more than 50 points ahead of second-place Pacific Lutheran, so even a, yikes, DQ wouldn't lose the title.

Selznick led off the quartet and handed off a second-place position, by just 0.52 seconds, to Thomas, who edged Whitman in front heading into the third leg, but only by 1/100th of a second.

That third leg was Hill's, and the double-event winner extended that slim margin to just over a half second lead for Stahlecker. The graduating senior took it from there and added space between herself and the runner-ups from Puget

Sound, touching the pad for the last time in her career to lift her teammates to a relay victory, in a time of 3:31.77, and lifting her team to a sweep of the freestyle relay events.

The men's relay was a far different story.

On the blocks for Whitman were Sears, Aslett, Schlenk and Sun.

Linfield broke to the lead quickly, while the Blues were back in fourth place -- through three legs of the relay.

Churning the waters in chase on the anchor leg was the four-time 100 free champion, though. Sun ate up ground with seemingly every stroke passing both the anchor-leg swimmers from PLU and Whitworth but not quite making all the distance Linfield had gained early.

Whitman finished with a time of 3:05.96, but a few moments later saw the scoreboard change its order and note the DQ on an exchange by Linfield to not only lift the Blues quartet to the top step of the event awards podium, but also past Linfield in the team standings.

Whitman's women ended the meet with 614.5 points to capture the title and out-point runner-up PLU (551.5) and third place Puget Sound (457).

The Blues men, with 489 points, finished second to Whitworth (665.5), and ahead of third-place Linfield (460.5).

Head coach Jennifer Blomme, voted the Northwest Conference women's coach of the year for a second straight season, couldn't say enough about her swimmers.

"There is just so much to be proud of," she began. "We swam this whole meet with a full heart as one team; I'm so happy for so many people.

"In addition to the obvious wins, there are some people like Amanda Li, Lucas Bergeson, Easton Powell, (who come to mind easily) who didn't score last year who made big moves into scoring positions (this season)."

Of her never-say-die men's team, Blomme was also proud of them "for embracing a new conference landscape at this meet this year. Sometimes a win the year before can make anything less than that feel like failure. Instead, with an attitude of huge respect for our competition, the men came into the meet willing to put it all out on the line and let the results be what they may. We knew we could have some big swims and if we went all in we would walk out proud no matter what."

The women's team had a secret this year. "(They) embraced the motto "ferocity over fear". We wanted to swim with courage, to not hold back out of fear. And that came together beautifully this weekend!"

Preliminaries Recap
The last preliminaries session of the Northwest Conference 2018 Swimming Championship saw Whitman's freestylers make their mark Sunday morning, but the swimmers in the stroke events also put on a show as the evening's championship and consolation heats will be populated by Blues men and women.

The 100-yard freestyle prelims put a stamp on Whitman's prowess in the freestyles.

Tara Stahlecker leads a quartet of teammates, and the rest of the field, into the finals after posting the morning's top time of 52.81 seconds, a personal best and the third al-time swim in Whitman history. Joining the senior in the championship heat and challenging for the win will be Gaby Thomas (53.53) with the second-fastest time, and Zoë Hill (53.59) with the third fastest. Adding potential points for the women will be Melia Matthews (11th, 54.80) who will swim in the consolation final.

The Whitman men also advanced four swimmers into the nighttime finals in the even.

Clark Sun (45.10) leads the way with the top seed and will have teammate Jared Sears (fifth, 47.00) joining in the championship final. Noah Schlenk (Tie-10th, 47.92) and Easton Powell (15th, 48.96) will swim for points in the consol heat.

As the freestylers for Whitman have landed on center stage throughout the three-day meet, the stroke event swimmers have seemingly played understudy roles. But that group showed their ready for prime-time positions with Sunday morning's prelim swims.

The morning's opening event, the 200 backstroke, saw Mara Selznick post the second-fastest time in the prelims with a clocking of 2 minutes, 5.15 seconds. She will be the Whitman women's lone representative in the evening heats after Jill Low fell agonizingly outside the top 16 placements with a 17th-place swim of 2:17.16 -- just 9/100s of a second away from the final spot in the consolation heat.

Colin Aslett (fifth, 1:54.26) earned a spot in the men's championship final in the event, and gets teammate Teddy Larkin (12th, 2:02.17) joining him at night with a swim in the consol final.

Another point-racking event Sunday night will come from the 200 breaststroke finals.

Miranda Williams posted the fastest time of the prelims -- and second fastest all-time in Whitman history -- with an NCAA provisional qualifying 'B' time of 2:22.58. The first-year won't be alone in the championship final, however, as Becca Hoffman (sixth, 2:27.82) and Amanda Li (2:31.45) also pushed their way into the top eight.

Like with the women, the Blues men will send a trio of entrants into the breaststroke championship heat.

Jonah Rodewald (2:07.73) posted the morning's second-fastest time, just edging out teammate Kieran Lenssen (third, 2:08.07). Keith Nussbaum clawed his way into the heat also, with a time of 2:11.50.

The morning's final prelim event was the 200 butterfly, and the Blues earned some stripes in this event, too.

Leah Petrini, a first-year, will make her first appearance in a championship final after registering the seventh-fastest time -- and seventh fastest in Whitman's top times list -- of 2:15.82 in the prelims. Similarly, first-year Erin Tyler (2:19.67) will mark her first finals swim after earning a spot in the consolation final.

Katie Davidson (2:21.74) and Maddy Gyongyosi (2:22.83) posted solid times but missed out on the consols by two seconds or less.

Fisher Munro will swim in the championship heat of the butterfly final after cruising to a fifth-place time of 1:56.81. Like with the women's non-qualifiers, both Luke Husband (2:06.90) and Alex Izbiky (2:07.76) were less than two seconds out of the last qualifying spot after posting season best times in their prelim swims.

One more individual event began at the end of the morning prelims session.

The 1,650-yard freestyle is a timed final event with three heats each for the men and women. The fastest eight seeds in both swim their timed-final heat at the start of the 5 p.m. finals session, after the remaining entrants have swum their timed final heats at the tail end of the prelims session.

The Whitman women head into the Sunday championship session atop the team leaderboard, with 414 points. Pacific Lutheran University (367.5 pts.) sits in second, while University Puget Sound (319) chases in third.

Whitman's men are in third place (311 pts.), five points ahead of fourth-place PLU. Whitworth leads with 465 points, well ahead of second-place Linfield (351).