TURKEY SHOOTOUT!

A holiday tradition was carried on today with the annual Carthage Men's Swimming Turkey Shootout.

The Shootout was establish several years ago during our Thanksgiving break to spice things up. It is a triple-elimination match race where swimmers square off against one another. To make things even more interesting the events are chosen at random with one swimmer drawing the distance (40, 80, 120, 160 or 200 yards). The top eight finishers get a small prize from the clothing bin, the winner gets a custom t-shirt declaring their victory. As a final reward, this team was served their team Thanksgiving dinner in the order of finish.

This year we crown a new champion - our first potential four-year winner in team history in Bob Pellican. Bob, working from the right side of the brackets made it through unscathed beating Mitchell Jackson, Chris Trella and Tom Stowe before making it to the championship match. On the left side of the bracket, Kyle Drake had a much tougher road. After early wins against Paul Busse and Bryce Davis, Stephen Schrack sent the freshman to the loser's bracket. There he faced and defeated Nathan Ripley in a 160 fly. Rip then went into the "double loser's" bracket where he beat Bryce, thus bringing him face-to-face with Kyle Drake. Kyle won setting up another race against Stephen. This time it was Kyle with the win, giving Schranck his first loss of the day and setting up one more race to determine the winner of the left side (once you get to the final four its a single-elimination situation). Kyle came through again setting up the final showdown with a well-rested Bob Pellican, who ultimately emerged victoriously!

The final standings: 1st Place Match Bob Pellican def Kyle Drake 3rd Place Match Stephen Schranck def Mitchell Jackson 5th Place Match Nathan Ripley def Buck Hoover 7th Place Match Isaac Rothenbaum def Bryce Davis 9th Place - Paul Bussee & Chris Trella 11th Place - Chris Varner & Scott Kaseska 13th Place - Bryan Pelka & Chris Steenrod* 15th Place - Ben Healy, Derek Schneider and Cary Healy 18th Place - Pat Alfes & Jeff Walkotten *This represents the first time in four years that a Steenrod has not gone out first.