Nov. 4, 2022 – An exciting weekend of action on campus started with a bang on Friday night as Loras College swimming and diving made easy work of Knox College at the San Jose Pool.

The Duhawk men stayed unbeaten and improved to 4-0 in dual action on the season with a 159-19 win over the Prairie Fire. On the women's side, the Duhawks got back to .500 on the year and improved to 2-2 with a 122-28 victory.

Only one event on Friday night was won by an athlete not donning Loras' swim wear as Knox's Taylor Scamman won the women's 50-yard free style race. Aside from that, each event saw a Duhawk finished atop the leaderboard.

Eight different Duhawks claimed individual event victories on Friday night as freshman Caden Gillmore led the charge yet again, going 3-for-3 with two individual wins and one as a relay team member. Gillmore was the only Duhawks from either team to win multiple individual events on Friday.

Gillmore was third in line for the men's 200-yard medley relay team that helped get the meet started as Kevin McMillan, Payton Markowski, Gillmore, and Brad LaGrange were victorious by close to a four-second margin ahead of a competing Duhawk relay team.

Gillmore later went on to win each the 100-yard fly and the 500-yard freestyle events, claiming the former by a seven-seconds over teammate Noah James.

Three of the Duhawk winners set season-best times for events that they have entered at least one other time this season. Freshman Connor Smith clocked a 2:00.17 en route to winning the 200-yard freestyle race over a pair a Duhawk teammates, including sophomore Austin Jorgensen.

Jorgensen also clocked a season-best with a 55.23 in the 100-yard freestyle, edging out Smith by less than a full second.

Between those two events, senior Charles Holmes snatched the closest finish of the day by 0.16 seconds over Knox's Etienne Thomas in the 50-yard free. Holmes' 24.41 time marked a season-best and it was just enough to keep the Duhawks unbeaten in the meet.

Seven different Duhawks finished with top mark in their events for the women's team Friday. Nina Schiro, Emma Pajtash, Ellianna Stine, and Annie Quinn were winners of one individual race each while also teaming up for a win in the 200-yard medley relay to open the meet.

The relay crew cruised to a 17-second victory over the challengers from Knox before claiming individual wins in the 200-yard free (Stine), 200-yard IM (Pajtash), 100-yard freestyle (Quinn), and 200-yard backstroke (Schiro) races.

Senior Taylor Hrabak was victorious over teammate Morgan Haus in the 500-yard freestyle before senior Kinsey Bogen won the 100-yard breaststroke race by four seconds over Knox's Kiely Thompson.  

Loras has a quick turnaround and will be back in action again tomorrow, Saturday Nov. 5, when it hosts North Central College at the San Jose Pool at 1 P.M.