Tucked in a package of college sports trivia cards may be the question, “Which sport in the Army-Navy rivalry has the longest winning streak?”
Navy’s recent football win over the Black Knights, the Midshipmen’s 14th consecutive victory, likely would be the common response, but an incorrect one.
Actually, it is the Navy female swimmers with the longest win streak against Army, 27. The Navy men also extended their meet winning streak over Army to 25 earlier this month.
Six years before the 27-year streak began, the University of Maine Black Bears’ 400 freestyle relay team of Steve Ferenczy, Peter Zeiger, Stephen Grohosky and Chuck Martin established a school record of 3 minutes, 7.1 seconds. For 33 years, the performance has been the Black Bear time standard.
This month at the Maine State Meet held at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, UMaine’s 400 free relay of Bangor’s Matt England (47.8), Shane Kinnon (46.9), Tim Edison (48.2) and Windham’s Nick Sundquist (44.5) established a new standard by one-tenth of a second.
In the women’s competition at the Maine State Meet, the Bates Bobcats won all 18 events. The field included the University of Maine, Bowdoin College and Colby College of Waterville.
Lindsey Prelgovisk, who swam for Messalonskee High School in Oakland, met the “B” time standard for the 2015-16 NCAA Division lll Championship in the three butterfly events: 50, 100 and 200. The senior’s times of 25.9 in the 50 fly and 56.5 in the 100 butterfly are the fastest times in the highly regarded New England Small College Athletic Conference during the first half of the dual-meet season.
Meanwhile, Bangor’s Emma Waddell, a sophomore at Williams College, is ranked second in the NESCAC in the 200 free at 1:54.2. Earlier this month, Waddell’s anchor split of 51.9 in the 400 free relay against Boston College led her team to a 3:31.4 win and the dual-meet victory.
At Florida State University in Tallahassee, Bar Harbor’s skilled freestyler and butterflyer, Leila Johnson, is performing well. In her first semester of college swimming, she holds the second-fastest 100 butterfly time for the Seminoles thus far in 2015-16, a 54.9 swum at the University of Georgia Invitational.