ELKHART, Ind. – Another day and another two championships for the McKendree University men's swimming and diving team here Thursday at the 2022 Great Lakes Valley Conference Swimming & Diving Championships held at the Elkhart Health and Aquatics Center.
 
With its performances on Thursday, the fourth-ranked Bearcats closed the gap between themselves, and No. 2 ranked Indianapolis as the Bearcats remain in second place after two days of the championship meet, but now only trail first-place leader UIndy by 29.5 points. The Greyhounds sit atop the team leaderboard at the halfway mark of the event with 772.50 points, while McKendree is second with 743 points. After Wednesday's first day of action, McKendree trailed UIndy by 54.5 points.
 
In Thursday's second day of action, the Bearcats and the other nine teams competed in four event finals and in those four finals, McKendree won three of them to earn three gold medals and has now five gold medals through the first two days of competition. Along with winning three of the four events, McKendree also took home a bronze medal on the day. McKendree also had an automatic qualifying time, an NCAA Provisional time and total of nine NCAA 'B' times.
 
McKendree didn't have to wait long into the second day of the finals to win a medal as senior Gregg Lichinsky (West Des Moines, Iowa/West Des Moines Valley) and freshman Jackson Lustig (Milwaukee, Wis./Pius XI) went first and third in the 100-yard butterfly. Lichinsky touched the wall first as he recorded an NCAA 'B' time of 47.24 to claim his second individual gold medal of the championships and third total gold medal. Lustig would record an NCAA 'B' time of 47.78 to finish third and claim a bronze medal.
 
Along with Lichinsky and Lustig, freshman Emilio Perez (Milwaukee, Wis./Greenfield) just missed medaling in the 100 butterfly as he recorded an NCAA 'B' time of 47.90 to finish fifth. In the B-Final of the event, all three Bearcats earned NCAA 'B'-cut times as junior DaVante Carey (Nassau, Bahamas/Queens College) was 10th with a time of 48.09, while freshman Patryk Rozenek (Radlin, Poland/Zsoms Raciborz) was 12th with a time of 48.59 and senior Taras Zherebetskyy (Alghero, Italy/ITS "Angelo Roth") was 13th with a time of 48.76.
 
The next gold medal for the Bearcats came in the third event final of the night – 200-yard freestyle. In that event, graduate student Xander Skinner (Namibia, Africa/Windhoek Afrikaans Private School) recorded not only won the event to take home his second gold medal, but his first individual event gold, he also set a new school record time as he recorded a time of 1:35.30. The time was also an NCAA automatic time and bettered the old school record of 1:36.08 set by Luca Simonetti at the 2019 GLVC Championships.
 
In addition to Skinner's first place finish, freshman Arthur Souza (Belo Horizonte, Brazil/Colegio Saber) just missed the medal stand as he finished fourth with an NCAA 'B'-cut time of 1:38.30. Two other Bearcats tallied 'B'-cut times in the event as freshman Alireza Yavari (Isfahan, Iran/Shayestegan) was fifth in the B-Final with a time of 1:38.67 and freshman Leo Gandaria-Hernandez (Milwaukee, Wis./Greenfield) posted a time of 1:40.10 to finish fourth in the C-Final.
 
The final gold medal of the night for the Bearcats came in the 400-Medley Relay as the Bearcats repeated as the league champion in the event as they recorded an NCAA Provisional time of 3:09.63 and that time also set both a new conference and school record. The time of 3:09.63 bettered the old school mark of 3:09.84 set at the 2021 NCAA Division II Championships and league record of 3:10.74 set by McKendree at last year's championship meet. The members of the gold medal 400-Medley Relay team were Carey, Lichinsky, Skinner and sophomore Filipe Pinheiro (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil/Colegio Ao Cubo).
 
Lichinsky has now won two individual golds and two relay golds, while Skinner, Pinheiro and Carey have each won two golds.
 
The only event that McKendree didn't medal in on Thursday was the 400 IM as senior Garrett Schrock placed eighth in the B-Final with a time of 4:05.15.
 
All first and second-place finishers earn first and second-team All-GLVC honors.
 
Here are McKendree's first and second-team All-GLVC honorees following the first two days of the GLVC Championships.
 
First Team
DaVante Carey – 200 Medley Relay, 400 Medley Relay
Caleb Law – 200 Medley Relay
Gregg Lichinsky – 200 Medley Relay, 50 Freestyle, 100 Butterfly, 400 Medley Relay
Filipe Pinheiro – 200 Medley Relay, 400 Medley Relay
Xander Skinner – 200 Freestyle, 400 Medley Relay
 
Second Team
Law – 200 Freestyle Relay
Lichinsky – 200 Freestyle Relay
Emilio Perez – 200 Freestyle Relay
Xander Skinner – 200 Freestyle Relay
 
On Thursday morning, the league held prelims in the 100 butterfly, 400 IM and 200 freestyle and in those prelims, the Bearcats set eight NCAA 'B'-cut times, including six in the 100 butterfly as Lichinsky (47.57) and Perez (47.73) went 1-2 in the prelims, while Skinner was the top qualifier in the 200 freestyle with a 'B'-cut time of 1:36.16.
 
The third day of the four-day GLVC Championships begins with preliminaries of the 500 freestyle, 100 backstroke, 100 breaststroke and 200 butterfly beginning at 10 a.m. ET. The men's 3-meter diving prelims are set to begin at 12:30 p.m. ET with finals taking place shortly after the conclusion of the prelims. On Friday night, the league to conduct championship finals in the 500 freestyle, 100 backstroke, 100 breaststroke, 200 butterfly and 800 freestyle relay.