BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – The Centre swimming & diving teams closed out the 2023 Southern Athletic Association Swimming & Diving Championships on Saturday, coming away with both gold medals and major conference awards along the way. The women got the closest they've gotten from winning the conference title (since the 2012-13 season), finishing with 802 points and 51 points shy of beating Rhodes. The men's successful final two days surged them up in the rankings, totaling 666.5 points to beat fourth-place Berry by 64.
 
The Gold & White wouldn't walk away without a couple accolades in the meet's postgame show, snagging two major conference awards before getting back on the bus to Danville. Head coach Dean Brownley would be awarded his 11th conference Coach of the Year honor since arriving at Centre College, the almost-22 year veteran being recognized for his team's accomplishments on the women's side.

"This was a roller coaster of a week." expressed Brownley, "We got off to a hot start but hit a little bit of a wall midway through the meet. We had an unbelievable finish tonight."
 
Caroline Lee would also walk away with a major SAA honor, being the Colonels' second-consecutive Women's Newcomer of the Year. The freshman won six different events over the course of the championships, winning either a gold, silver or bronze medal in every event that she competed in.
 
The Colonels started the last finals session with three swimmers among the top eight in the women's 1650 free, Anneliese Thomas emerging as the Gold & White frontrunner at fifth on an 18:11.26 time. Samantha Coffey finished soon after at sixth place with her 18:15.2 finish, Greer Manger less than two seconds later for seventh place in the event on an 18:16.97 final time. Freshman Brandon Anderson would finish out his first go-around at the championships in the men's three-meter diving event, earning a personal high in scoring by over 66 points for a total of 494.65 points. Anderson's new score bolters his rankings for the upcoming NCAA Regional Championships.
 
Lee was the next Colonel to excel during the final day, claiming an individual title in the women's 200 back. The Newcomer of the Year dropped almost five seconds on her way to victory, passing the second-place finisher from Rhodes in the second 100 yards for a 2:05.5 time. Dustin Niebauer would come close to the completing the freshman sweep in the 200 back, earning a second-place medal on the men's side on his way to a new personal record time of 1:52.47.
 
The Gold & White would waste no time claiming medals in the next set of events, Callie West collecting her sixth SAA title of the weekend with a dominant :51.84 time for first overall. Senior Elise Burch would earn another SAA medal in her senior tour at the championships, claiming a bronze medal with a :52.43 time to cap her individual events on a time drop from her seed time. Kai Oddo would get his fourth SAA honor in the men's side of the event, dropping .66 seconds to not only win third overall but also crack another Centre men's swimming & diving program record by .01 seconds dating back to 2009.
 
Natalie Cox continued the streak of Colonels winning medals in events, jumping up a place from her prelims time to snatch a third-place medal. Cox's final time would be at 2:27.29, beating out the fourth-place finisher by one and half seconds. Audrey Becker continued the women's train with a one-second time drop in the women's 200 fly, dropping under 2:10 to finish her race on a 2:09.84 time. Senior Claire Pellegrin also was among the event's top-eight finishers, dropping time of her own to end up sixth place overall on a 2:14.95 time.
 
The men erupted in the men's 200 fly with three of the top four spots in the event, including Jackson Fears touching out the second-place finisher from BSC by .58 seconds. The sophomore's 1:53.22 final time was over a half-second under his prelim time, the first 100 yards of his race being a second faster than anyone else in the field. Calvin Mar would earn his first SAA medal in the event, finishing third place overall on a 1:56.34 final time. Senior Austen Reid would be less than .1 seconds behind him, going two seconds faster than his time in the morning to hit a final time of 1:56.41.
 
The final events of the night was owned by the Colonels, the Gold & White dropping over two and a half seconds in the women's 400 free relay on their way to a third SAA gold medal, another program record and another time under the NCAA relay mark for a chance to take another relay to NCAA's. The team of Burch, Lee, Manger and West would combine for a 3:26.82 final time, 3.88 seconds ahead of second-place Rhodes. The men would finish the SAA championships with a medal of their own, dropping four and a half seconds from their seed time to touch the wall at third place overall. The crew of Wyatt Fulton, Fears, Niebauer and Oddo tallied a final 3:04.57 time in the event to shatter the Centre record by almost three seconds.
 
"My first year, I was on the 400 free relay with three senior girls [Chloe Groves, Amelia Blakenbeker, Annie Holmes]." recounted senior Elise Burch after the championships concluded, "I'm so excited I'm passing the baton to the underclassmen, this team is in great hands with these women. The men's team have been my biggest supporters behind the blocks. I love this team, and I can't wait to see it grow after I leave."
 
Kai Oddo led the men in scoring with five medals over the course of the championship (two gold, one silver, two bronze), a new high from the junior. Callie West led the women with six wins in the seven events she competed in (the other being a second-place honor), the most of any student-athlete in the meet on the women's side. The Colonels hoisted seven championships on the women's side and three on the men's side with eight new program records and four NCAA cuts.
 
Below is a list of all the major award winners from the championships:

Women's Newcomer of the Year: Caroline Lee (Centre)
Men's Newcomer of the Year: Jack Whitten (Rhodes)
Women's High-point Diver of the Year: Anna Cate Goodson (BSC)
Men's High-point Diver of the Year: Justin Toth (BSC)
Women's High-point Swimmer of the Year: Adaline Carroll (Rhodes)
Men's High-point Swimmer of the Year: Bryan Sullivan (Millsaps)
Women's Coach of the Year: Dean Brownley (Centre)
Men's Coach of the Year:  Astrid Escobar (Berry)

The teams will set their sights now on the upcoming NCAA Swimming & Diving Championships, now waiting for the national office to announce this year's qualifiers. Freshman Andersona will have to go through the NCAA Regional round in Atlanta in two weeks before punching his ticket to Greensboro, N.C. You can catch all the updates on your favorite Centre Colonels on centreathletics.com.

Below is a final list of all the Centre All-SAA honorees for the 2023 SAA Swimming & Diving Championships:

All-SAA First Team
Elise Burch (800 free relay*, 200 free relay*^, 400 free relay*^)
Jackson Fears (200 fly)
Wyatt Fulton (200 free relay)
Henry Lang (200 free relay)
Caroline Lee (800 free relay*, 50 free, 200 free relay*^, 200 back, 400 free relay*^)
Greer Manger (800 free relay*, 200 free relay*^, 400 free relay*)
Dustin Niebauer (200 free relay)
Kai Oddo (200 free relay, 100 back^)
Callie West (800 free relay*, 50 free, 200 free relay*^, 100 fly*, 100 free, 400 free relay*^)
 
All-SAA Second Team
Sarah Albrecht (200 medley relay)
Brandon Anderson (one-meter diving*)
Audrey Becker (200 medley relay, 400 IM, 200 fly)
Elise Burch (200 medley relay, 200 free)
Natalie Cox (200 medley relay, 400 medley relay*^)
Jackson Fears (800 free relay)
Wyatt Fulton (800 free relay)
Henry Lang (800 free relay)
Caroline Lee (100 back, 400 medley relay*^)
Greer Manger (400 medley relay*^)
Dustin Niebauer (200 back)
Kai Oddo (50 free^)
George von Canon (800 free relay)
Callie West (400 medley relay*^)

All-SAA Honorable Mention
Audrey Becker (200 IM)
Elise Burch (100 free)
Natalie Cox (200 breast)
Calvin Mar (200 fly)
Dustin Niebauer (200 IM, 100 back)
Kai Oddo (100 free^)
 
* denotes an NCAA B-cut time standard
^ denotes a program record

FRIDAY (Day Three)
After crowning several championships and plenty of other medalists in day two of the Southern Athletic Association (SAA) Championships, the Centre swimming & diving teams came back for day three on Saturday and continued their success. With one final day left to go, the Centre women's team sits 40 points outside of the top spot in the team rankings, currently holding second with 558 points. The men were able to advance in the ranks after their day three performance, moving up to third with 421.5 points and surpassing Berry.
 
Callie West repeated her SAA Championship title in the women's 100 fly on Friday night, the sophomore winning the event by almost two seconds in her :55.70 final time. Her score was once again an NCAA B-cut, helping her solidify a solid time to get invite to the NCAA Championships in a month. The Colonels also featured another top-eight finisher in the event, Emma Daman finishing eighth overall in the A-final.
 
One of the men's best showings so far this week came from the 100 back, the Gold & White claiming two of the top three spots for a surge in points. Kai Oddo would claim his first individual SAA Champion with a winning time of :50.3, breaking a Centre pool record with that and his prelim time of :49.94, the first Centre men's swimming & diving student-athlete to go under a sub-50 time. He couldn't be the only successful Colonel in the heat, as freshman Dustin Niebauer claimed another third-place medal in the SAA Championships off his :51.13 final time.
 
The women's team put together three other individual races that claimed the runner-up spot in their respected event, two stemming from senior student-athletes on the roster. Audrey Becker was the first of the two seniors, dropping almost seven seconds from her seed time to earn the silver medal on a 4:35.12 final time. She was joined on the top-eight podium with Samantha Coffey, the freshman continuing a successful meet with her fifth-place, 4:45.72 time.
 
Elise Burch was the second of the two seniors to claim a silver medal at the SAA Championships individually, the Louisville, Ky., native touched the wall on a 1:52.92 time in the women's 200 free, dropping over a half-second from her prelim time less than 12 hours prior. Freshman Caroline Lee slammed her impact in the women's 100 back just a few events later, the Nicholasville, Ky., newcomer dropping 1.96 seconds from her prelim time to a final second-place time of :57.48. Lee inches closer to the program record, now only .25 seconds from the mark set in 2011.
 
The Colonels had a plethora of other student-athletes individually among the day's top-eight finalists, including Jackson Fears in the men's 100 fly (sixth, :50.88), a pair from the men's 200 free in Wyatt Fulton (fifth, 1:42.42) and senior Henry Lang (eighth, 1:44.47), Gracie O'Brien in the women's three-meter (sixth, 273.5 points) and Natalie Cox (fourth, 1:06.54).
 
The women would earn a silver medal in the final event of the evening, securing the runner-up spot in the 400 medley relay and putting another relay under the NCAA relay invite cut. The team of Lee, Cox, West and Greer manger would combine a 3:51.22 final time in the event, also breaking a program record in that race as well.
 
The Centre swimming & diving teams will have one more day of action in the conference championships, Sunday's slew of events determining the four-day meet's winners. Prelims for Sunday's finale will include the 200 back, 100 free, 200 breast, 200 fly, the 1650 free, men's three-meter diving and the 400 free relay, starting at 11 a.m. ET.

THURSDAY (Day Two)
After earning an NCAA relay mark yesterday on the first day of the 2023 Southern Athletic Association (SAA) Swimming & Diving Championships, the Centre swimming & diving teams followed it up even better on day two of the meet. Their Thursday performance included conference and program records, more NCAA qualifying marks and plenty of gold medals. Although the meet's scoring system has an error and there's no confirmed official scores as of yet, check back here when the official scores release.

"We had a good morning, but not great, but tonight we swam much more loosely and it showed in our results." expressed head coach Dean Brownley, "Katelynn [Stanczyk] got us off to a great start, and after that Greer [Manger] and Anneliese [Thomas] just swam great."
 
Arguably the most thrilling race of the race came from the men's 200 free relay, the Gold & White earning a victory on a comeback win. The team of Wyatt Fulton, Henry Lang, Dustin Niebauer and Kai Oddo combined for a 1:23.46 final time, tearing down an eight-year old program record on the way. Niebauer and Oddo would each split a sub-:20.6 time in the race, the Colonels' :40.78 final 100 yards marked the fastest segment of that relay's legs by .85 seconds, surging them forward from fourth to first place overall.
 
The women's team would help sweep the 200 free relays with a thrilling race of their own, shattering an SAA meet record with their 1:34.87 performance and almost two-second victory. Centre would consist of Elise Burch, Caroline Lee, Greer Manger and Callie West, the team earning a second NCAA relay standard for the program in their pursuit to send some relays to the NCAA Division III championships next month.
 
The Gold & White's success in the sprint relays showed in the women's 50 free as well, Centre claiming the top three medals in the event for a sweep. They wouldn't just claim one gold medal though, as Callie West and Caroline Lee tied for first-place overall in the meet's event with a :23.68 final time. Senior Elise Burch would cap an excellent 50-free record at the SAA Championships with a medal of her own, dropping .1 seconds from her prelim race to earn a bronze medal on a :23.89 time. Kai Oddo would help the Colonels break another program record on Thursday night, earning his own medal in the men's 50 free. The junior's :20.71 finish not only teared down a 14-year old record, but also garnered him a silver medal at the SAA Championships.
 
Centre would also capture a silver medal on the diving board, Brandon Anderson making his SAA Championships debut on the men's one-meter board, hitting a new personal record of 498.5 points in the 11-dive format to beat out the third-place finisher in the event by a little over four points. Anderson's performance on Thursday bolstered his NCAA Regional qualifying score, a perfect setup for the upcoming championships. Jonah Crenshaw and Sam Feingold were also among the event's top-10 finishers, the two finishing ninth (279.55) and tenth (233.4), respectively.
 
The Colonels grabbed a pair of medals in the men's and women's 200 IM, both teams snatching a third-place award in the event to round out their medals on day two. Senior Audrey Becker finished her women's 200 IM race with a 2:09.96 final time, dropping almost two seconds from her prelim time to earn the medal. Freshman Dustin Niebauer was the medal-winner on the men's side of the 200 IM, earning his award by beating out the fourth-place finisher by .38 seconds. Niebauer's .72-second time drop resulted in a 1:54.34 finish, the top freshman finisher in the conference.
 
The Gold & White will be back in action on Friday for day three of the SAA Championships, prelims kicking off at 11 a.m. ET. The events that the teams will compete in will be the 400 IM, 100 fly, 200 free, 100 breast, 100 back, 400 medley relay and women's three-meter diving.

WEDNESDAY (Day One)
The Centre swimming & diving teams started the 2023 Southern Athletic Association (SAA) Swimming & Diving Championships on Wednesday night, taking a fast start to the four-day championship on night one. Both teams competed well at the conference championships, the women sitting in second place on 129 points (eight points out of first) after the first session with the men slotted at fourth with 86 points, four out from third.
 
The top performance of the night came from the women's 800 free relay, a dominating win of almost eight seconds that included an NCAA Division III cut by over a second. The winning relay would consist of senior Elise Burch, Caroline Lee, Greer Manger and Callie West, putting up a combined time of 7:38.1. The 2023 championship marks the second consecutive year that the Colonels have posted a first-place finish in the event for the SAA title. Centre will wait and see if the relay is invited to the NCAA DIII Swimming & Diving Championships next month based off their time on Wednesday.
 
Both Gold & White teams each received a silver medal as well in the championships, the men doing so in their 800 free relay. Beating third-place Rhodes by almost four seconds, the team of Jackson Fears, Wyatt Fulton, Henry Lang and George Von Canon combined for a 6:54.38 time. The women earned their runner-up award in the first event of the championships; Sarah Albrecht, Natalie Cox, Audrey Becker and Burch teaming up in the women's 200 medley relay. The relay would hold on to push back Berry to the third-place spot, touching them out by .2 seconds for a 1:47.02 final time.
 
The men improved their seed time in their first event of the meet as well, the crew of Dustin Niebauer, Ben Wafford, Fears and Kai Oddo dropping .95 seconds from their seed time to finish fourth in the event overall. The Colonels' final time was 1:33.02, Oddo's :20.39 split as the anchor leg being the second-fastest split of the event. The race set a historic mark as well for the program, breaking the Centre men's swimming & diving record by over three-tenths of a second.
 
The Colonels also featured a pair of divers in the women's one-meter event top eight finishers, the multi-sport athlete duo of Haley Rice and Gracie O'Brien competing in their first SAA Championships. Rice led the crew with a fourth-place finish in the event, totaling 338.5 points overall, nine points ahead of the fifth-place finisher from Birmingham-So. Gracie O'Brien rounded out the event's top-eight finishers with 288.9 points, solidifying 11 more team points for the Colonels as she finished over 14 points from ninth overall. Katie Hollingsworth also competed in the event for the Gold & White, placing 12th in the event with 177.15 points.
 
The teams will get back in action on Thursday morning, the first prelims session of the championships having a scheduled start of 11 a.m. ET. The events that will take place will be the 500 free, 200 IM, 50 free, 200 free relay and men's one-meter diving. You can catch all the meet information on the championship central website, as well as live results on Meet Mobile.

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