Success! Our first night at the Miami Ohio Invite - with many of Division I 's best swimmers, has resulted in a new Wabash School Record. Michael Belanger '08 took down Gary Mineart's ('01) six year old 1650 record with a time of 16:36.60! In what has been described as a gutsy swim by Asst. Coach Ben Hewitt, Belanger went out strong, found his rhythm and held on for a quick 1:29.03 in his last 150 yards to get his name on the record board. His swim looked like this...

17 Belanger, Michael WAB 16:36.60

26.97 29.30 29.67 29.96 30.16 29.98 30.12 30.08

30.27 30.34 30.30 30.24 30.44 30.46 30.26 30.38

29.99 30.41 30.45 30.64 30.52 30.63 30.84 30.79

30.68 31.06 30.50 30.76 30.93 30.44 29.83 29.94

29.26

Wrapping up the short evening of long events was our 800 Freestyle Relay. Not wanting to be shown up by Belanger's record breaking performance, the Little Giants team of Belanger, Graham '09, Manker '06, and Blackwell '09 finished up with a 7:13.78 - nearly 3 seconds FASTER than last year's conference meet - and best time of the season. Not bad for the half way point of the season! Their splits looked like this...

Belanger - 1:48.48

Graham - 1:47.11

Manker - 1:50.29

Blackwell - 1:47.90

Way to go guys... keep having fun!

†