FIT completed four stellar days of competition Saturday night at the Burt Flickinger Natatorium on the campus of Erie Community College.  Five women and three men represented the Tigers over seven sessions of swimming that included a host of life-time best times and school records.
 
Racing began Wednesday evening with the 400 medley and 800 freestyle relays.  In the former, Katie Hogan, Katie vanBeek, Emily Mance, and Lindsay Richardson finished in seventh place with a new school record of 4:33.10.  En route to the record, Hogan led off with her own record, setting a new 100 backstroke mark of 1:06.48.  Hogan ultimately went on to break that record two more times in her individual swims on Friday. Following diving, the team of Mance, vanBeek, Anna Pacult, and Richardson swam to fifth place and the second fastest FIT time ever, stopping the clock in 9:06.80.
 
Mance started things off for the Tigers Thursday with an 11^th place finish in the 500 freestyle.  Her time of 5:25.45 was less than a second off her school record time set at this meet last year.  Fellow distance swimmer Nick Paganelli pulled in 13^th place points for the men.  His finals time of 5:13.28 just missed his prelim swim of 5:11.67, which ranks him second all-time at FIT.  Swimming the 50 for the women were Richardson, Hogan, vanBeek, and Pacult, finishing 16^th, 17^th, 19^th, and 20^th, respectively. Hogan's win in the C-Final (26.89) ties her for second all-time in the event at FIT.  Richardson sits tied at fourth with vanBeek, and Pacult moves up to seventh on the FIT top-10 list.  Jeff Sutera swam two sub-23-second races.  He timed a 22.85 in prelims and a 22.93 in finals for 21^st.  Sutera, along with Hogan, missed the school record in this event by one tenth.  Ian Lowe swam yet another best time this season with a 24.92 in prelims, leapfrogging to sixth all-time at FIT and earning him 27^th.
 
Friday night commenced with Hogan, vanBeek, Mance, and Richardson in the 200 medley relay.  The foursome swam to seventh place in a time of 2:04.45, just off the school record of 2:03.22.  Following diving, Mance finished eighth in the 400 IM in 5:07.17.  Last year, Mance became FIT's first swimmer to finish in the top-eight in an individual event at Nationals when she took fifth in the 1650 freestyle.  This swim marks the second such achievement.  Mance's prelim time of 5:06.95 also broke her existing school record.  Paganelli earned his second 13^th place finish when he raced to a 4:36.89 400 IM.  The time ranks Paganelli second all-time at FIT and was a drop of seven seconds from his prelim time and twenty-two seconds from his time at Regionals.  In the 200 freestyle Richardson had a breakthrough swim of 2:07.75, fast enough for tenth place and third all-time at FIT.  Sutera followed with an equally hard-fought win in the C-Final, improving his life-time best to 1:56.53, a time that ranks him third all-time at FIT.  VanBeek, Pacult, and Lowe all raced the 100 breaststroke. VanBeek (1:20.25) and Pacult (1:22.41) finished 13^th and 15^th, respectively, and hold FIT's second and fourth fastest times in the event. Lowe (22^nd) earned another life-time best of 1:10.63, a six-second drop from Regionals that puts him fifth all-time at FIT.  The night concluded with Hogan's second school record of the day.  Hogan broke her two-day-old 100 backstroke record in prelims (1:06.31) and broke it again (1:05.37) for a tenth place finish in finals.
 
The final night of competition began with another top-eight individual performance for Mance, as she finished fifth in 18:24.47 in the 1650 freestyle.  Mance has now earned three individual All-America honors in her two years of swimming at FIT, holds three individual school records, and ranks in the top-ten all-time in nearly every event.  In men's 1650 freestyle, Paganelli timed an 18:21.17 to earn 12^th place points and improve his own school record by nearly a full minute.  In the 100 freestyle, Richardson broke the one minute mark for the first time in her career, clocking 58.75 for a school record in the process.  She finished 13^thoverall, just ahead of Hogan (1:00.19) in 16^th and Pacult (1:01.15) in 18^th, who now stand sixth and ninth, respectively, at FIT.  Sutera and Lowe fell just shy of their prelim times in finals, but record career-bests to finish 13^thand 24^th, respectively.  Sutera's prelim time of 50.28 is the second fastest all-time at FIT and Lowe's 55.69 is the fifth fastest.  VanBeek swam the team's final individual event of the meet.  She dipped under three minutes for the first time ever in her career in the preliminary heats and then knocked off nearly three more seconds in finals to snag 12^th in 2:56.90. That time ranks her second all-time at FIT.  The final event of the night, the 400 freestyle relay, concluded the meet in the same fashion it began—with a school record.  Mance, Pacult, Hogan, and Richardson teamed up to break the four-minute barrier and demolish the old record by over three seconds.  Mance's lead-off time of 59.06 is the third fastest at FIT, and the team's final time of 3:59.33 earned them seventh overall.