Jamestown Community College’s Kyle Dean was named the Northeast District Swimmer of the Meet and the Region 3 Swimmer of the Year. Submitted photo

A tremendous weekend in the water of the Region 3 championships was capped by several team and individual awards for Jamestown Community College on Sunday afternoon.

The three-day event held at Erie CC saw the women’s swimming and diving team capture another regional championship with 564 points, almost 200 points clear of second place.

“It’s awesome to win back-to-back regional titles on the women’s side; they have worked hard and have stayed focused on the task at hand,” said head coach Todd Conklin. “Desi Putt to win all her events, the veteran leadership from Anna Jones, and to see Emily Swan and Sophia Gervasio have swims and a meet like they did. I’m super proud.”

For the men, it was the Jayhawks taking the runner-up spot of the six teams.

“On the men’s side, it was exciting all week to see what they did, but this is our first hardware from this meet on the men’s side in five years. Kyle Dean and Zach Johnson are leading the way in winning all of their individuals, and seeing the rest have best swims all week was amazing,” added Conklin.

With his perfect weekend and taking down several records, Dean led a trio of Jayhawks to bring home a plaque, being named both the Region 3 Male Swimmer of the Meet and the Region 3 Male Swimmer of the Year.

“Super proud of Kyle Dean and what he achieved this week with the numbers, meet records, pool record, and countless school records,” said Conklin on the accomplishments.

Along with Dean, Ashlynn Swan earned the Region 3 Female Diver of the Meet; she took down both the ladies’ one-meter and three-meter events.

Conklin was also named the Region 3 Women’s Coach of the Year, a season after winning the Women’s National Coach of the Year award.

“Ashlynn Swan winning diver of the meet is well deserved with all the hours she puts in with extra training,” Conklin said. “She was solid all weekend on both boards. Finally, the Region 3 Coach of the Year award doesn’t come without the performance of the kids or the dedication from my assistant coaches. I’m lucky to have a great staff and even better student athletes.”

Sunday was the shortest of the three days of events. Jamestown CC started out fantastic with Anna Jones finishing second in the 50 butterfly and Cameron Milewski winning the event for the men.

Next up was the grueling 1,650 freestyle, where the Jayhawks took the top two spots as Gervasio topped teammate Addison Lawson by almost a minute. Noah Miles, who is normally a speed swimmer, stepped up and finished fourth for the men in the mile.

Then came the women’s 100 free; Emily Swan brought home a second for Jamestown CC; she was less than four-tenths behind first. Randall Hall took eighth for the men.

Another record fell in the 200 back; Dean broke the program mark with a 2:01:91. That was the last of 10 record-breaking events for the Jayhawks.

“Regarding all the records falling, it’s truly a testimony to our program and the belief in our program,” Conklin said. “The coaches, Bill Rollinger, Bill Spaulding, Claire Johnson, and I believe in each one of these kids and their ability to do amazing things, and that’s what we did. It was great to see Kyle Dean and Zach Johnson rewrite the record book and then the quartet of boys break the relays. They have grown together, and the results show it,” mentioned Conklin.

Dean was joined on the podium in the 200 back by Christian Merrill, who came in third. For the ladies, Desiree Putt finished a weekend where she was a perfect four-for-four in her individual swims with another win.

Zach Johnson also went four-for-four in individual events and finished the weekend with a victory in 200 breast; he was almost seven seconds ahead of second. Kyle Camp and Hall finished sixth and ninth, respectively. Haleigha Hardy captured second for the women, close to eight seconds ahead of third.

In the diving well, the aforementioned Ashlynn Swam won the 3-meter by over 35 points. Milewski finished second, but is closing ground on first, falling by less than four points.

The last events of the day and meet were the 400 free relays. The men’s team of Johnson, Miles, Milewski, and Dean capped the day with a second. The ladies team of Jones, Putt, Jalyn Linton, and Emily Swan slammed the door on the competition with a win by 30 seconds.

“It was truly an exciting weekend, and the kids swam fantastically,” Conklin said. “Coming into the meet, my expectations were that we would have some great swims and we would have some bad. Well, we took care of the great swims all weekend and, truthfully, there were no bad ones. We got rolling early and took the momentum and the excitement from all the great swims and finished with an amazing weekend.”

The Jayhawks now have a couple of weeks to improve in practice before they return to Erie CC’s Burt Flickinger Athletic Center for the NJCAA nationals March 5-8.

WOMEN’S BASKETBALL

JAYHAWKS FALL

In front of its best crowd of the year, it looked like the Jamestown Community College women’s teams was going to put 18th-ranked SUNY Niagara on upset alert before they ultimately fell 80-57.

The Jayhawks grabbed their first lead of the game at 12-11, with Jennica Berens knocking down a layup for the Jayhawks. The sophomore finished with 12 points on the afternoon.

Niagara snatched the lead back, but it was short-lived as local product Alyson Canfield netted a 3-pointer to make it 17-15 Jayhawks. The Jamestown native scored a team-high 15 while making five of nine triples.

The game would go to the second quarter tied 17-17.

Jamestown CC once again grabbed the lead coming out of the break when Kendra Altadonna scored two of her 10 points to make it a 19-17 Jayhawk advantage.

That’s when Niagara took over, hitting on an 18-5 run led by Kystal Smith, who topped all scorers with 30 points. The Thunderwolves ended up outscoring JCC 20-9 in the stanza to take a 37-26 lead to halftime.

It was more of the same in the second half, with Niagara outpacing the Jayhawks by six points in each of the third and fourth quarters.

The loss sets Jamestown CC back to 15-5 on the year, 3-2 in conference play.

The Jayhawks have nonconference road game at Finger Lakes CC at 5 p.m. Wednesday. The women finish up the regular season with a game at Monroe CC on Saturday at 1 p.m.

MEN’S BASKETBALL

JAYHAWKS LOSE

TO NIAGARA

SANBORN — Five players scored in double figures to lead SUNY Niagara to a 95-70 victory over Jamestown CC.

Leading the way for the Thunderwolves (22-5, 4-1) was Bobby Beilein with 18 points, followed by Chioke Marshall with 14, Jamyier Patton with 13, and Jalen Duff and Camron Dyer with 12 apiece. Daniel Ryees added 12 rebounds, and Patton and Dyer collected seven assists apiece.

For the Jayhawks (4-22, 0-5), Tamir Barrant scored 18 points, Marcus Wynter had 16 and Federico Foddai chipped in 11.