Gannon University’s men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams finished the 2021-2022 PSAC season with strong efforts in the PSAC Championships this past weekend at the Graham Aquatic Center in York.

The men’s team finished third during the four-day event, in the end qualifying eight finalists for the last night of the competition.

Redshirt freshman Stephen McCallum was the standout of the men’s team, finishing as a runner-up in the 100-yard freestyle with a time of 44.77 seconds.

The finish proved to be a boost for McCallum, who as a result earned all-PSAC honors and achieved an NCAA B-cut time.

Earlier in the meet, Justin Decheck swam to a second-place finish in the 100 back with a time of 50.68 to earn all-conference honors and he teamed with Joey Decheck, Seth Butler and David Gallion to place third in the 200 medley relay in 1:32.69.

Individually, Hiyan Kubagawa placed third in the 400 IM in 4:04.05 while McCallum notched a third-place finish in the 200 free in 1:40.92. Conor Hebert, McCallum and the Decheck brothers teamed to place third in the 200 free relay in 1:22.72.

Saturday’s final individual event featured an inspiring performance from redshirt freshman Josh Nel, who swam in the 200 breaststroke A-final and finished eighth with a time of 2:10.02.

Meanwhile, the women’s team closed out the season with a trio of top-4 podium finishes that highlighted the efforts of swimmers such as Sterre van de Goor, who placed fourth in her 1,650 freestyle competition. Senior Silvija Taraska completed her fifth and final season as a Knight with a strong performance, securing All-PSAC honors for the third time while also adding a third-place finish in the 100 freestyle.

The previous day, Taraska posted a school record and NCAA “B” cut time of 1:03.53 during the prelims of the 100 breaststroke and then finished fifth in the finals in 1:03.98. She also clocked a “B” cut time of 1:51.13 to place third in the 200 freestyle and earlier she made the “B” cut with a school-record time of 23.56 in the 50 free prelims. She wound up fifth in the finals in 23.75.

The 800 free relay team of Taraska, Irati Arzalluz, Chenay Date Line and Francesca Nemetz finished third with a school-record time of 7:41.39.

Of the 12 teams that competed, the Knights finished fifth overall, amassing 704 points, 49.5 points behind fourth-place finisher Clarion.

West Chester University finished in first overall with 1,649 points accumulated. The finish means West Chester has now won 15 of the past 16 PSAC team titles.

As a whole, the 2021-2022 Knights’ wmen’s team finished with 15 top-eight podium finishes, which featured nine, top-five finishes at the 2022 PSAC championships.

MICHAEL GUIDO

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