by Mackenzie McMahon
The Hope College men's swim and dive team is finishing out the first semester in a flurry at the Kenyon College Total Performance Invitational at Kenyon College.
The 20th-ranked Flying Dutchmen recorded four swims in their Top 10 all-time on Thursday during the first day of the three-day, non-scoring meet. Hope is fourth with 223 points.
Sophomore Conor East (Farmington Hills, Michigan / North Farmington HS), pictured right, grabbed a fifth-place finish in the 200-yard individual medley with a time of 1 minute, 53.41 seconds on Thursday. It's the seventh-fastest 200 IM in the Flying Dutchmen's history.
Freshman Colin Kalkman (Holland, Michigan / Holland Christian), pictured left, recorded a 13th-place time of 1:54.35 in the 200-yard IM for the Flying Dutchmen. The swim is the 10th-fastest in team history.
Kalkman also swam Hope's fourth-fastest 100 backstroke swim at 51.17 seconds while leading off the seventh-place 400 medley relay that finished in 3:21.95. The relay included junior Jack Muller (Queensland, Australia / Meridian State), sophomore Ben Catton (Holland, Michigan / Holland Christian), and freshman Joel Cummins (Osceola, Indiana / Penn).
In the 200 freestyle relay, the Flying Dutchmen finished 10th and 11th.
The relay of Catton, Cummins, sophomore Ben Dubay (Omaha, Nebraska), and junior Jackson Uyl (Dewitt, Michigan / DeWitt) went 1:24.33.
Catton's 20.94 split to start ranked ninth all-time at Hope.
The relay of junior JT Nissen (Spring, Texas / Klein Collilns), sophomore Braeden Pfeil (Holt, Michigan / Holt), and East recorded a swim of 1:25.34.
The 400-yard freestyle relay took seventh place with a team of Catton, Muller, Cummins, and Kalkman recording a time of 3:21.95.
A second relay team in the 400-yard freestyle consisting of freshman Dallas Fisher (Highland, MIchigan / Detroit Catholic Central), freshman Christian Dunaitas (Commerce Township, Michigan / Detroit Catholic Central), Uyl, and East placed 15th with a time of 3:28.02.
Freshman Conner Halberg (Novi, Michigan / Northville) swam in the 500-yard freestyle, clocking a time of 4:40.41 for 13th place.
The meet continues on Friday, Nov. 19, with preliminaries at 10 a.m. and finals at 6 p.m.
