Cizmar Earns Lake Erie's First All-America To Close National Championship

Ivan Cizmar/Photo By Bill Wendall

Saturday March 17

PAINESVILLE, OHIO -Both participating Lake Erie College swimmers saved their best for last as the program saw its first All-American award and another honorable mention All-American at the final day of the NCAA Division II Swimming and Diving Championship. 

Freshman Ivan Cizmar (Zagreb, Croatia) earned those All-America honors with a seventh place finish in the 200 Yard Backstroke.  Cizmar guaranteed All-American status when his swam fifth in qualifying by breaking his previous best by over .8 seconds with a time of 1:46.77.  He came back Saturday night with a time of 1:47.94 in the final to place seventh.

Cizmar was not alone in scoring on the day as sophomore Julian Milinkovskyi (Ukranie) has his best showing of four events placing 16th in the 200 Yard Breaststroke.  Milinkovskyi qualified for the B final honorable mention All-America status in a time of 2:01.50.  He then placed 16th in the finals in 2:02.05.

Saturday's efforts from the pair of underclassmen, along with Cizmar's honorable mention All-American performance in the 400 Yard IM earlier in the week, placed Lake Erie 22nd of 27 teams with 19 points. 

"Ivan had a really strong meet and I am so excited that he was able to bring the first All-American award to our young program," said Head Coach Nicole Rose. "As a team, we didn't achieve everything we had hoped going into this meet but both Ivan and Julian had great first seasons for the Storm and I am proud of the accomplishments they garnered this year. This meet was a great experience for us and we are looking forward to these two young men continuing to lead the Storm to more appearances at the National Championship in coming years!"

Friday March 16

Sophomore Julian Milinkovskyi (Ukranie) and freshman Ivan Cizmar (Zagreb, Croatia) each swam career-best races in the 100 Yard Breaststroke and 100 Yard Backstroke Friday at the NCAA Division II Swimming and Diving Championships.  Milinkovskyi completed his third event with a 20th place finish in the 100 Breaststroke in 56.19. Cizmar placed 27th in the 100 Backstroke in 50.74.

Thursday March 15

In the Thursday Night Consolation final, Lake Erie College freshman swimmer Ivan Cizmar (Zagreb, Croatia/) shaved over 2.5 seconds off his qualifying time and over four seconds over his previous best time to finish 11th place in the 400 Yard IM at the NCAA Division II Swimming and Diving Championships. 

Cizmar swam the race in 3:58.05 to earn six team points for Lake Erie.  He became the first swimmer in the program's history to earn points at the national championship. The freshman still has two races to go this weekend.

Cizmar and sophomore Julian Milinkovskyi (Ukraine) finished 16t)h and 17th place respectively in the preliminary swim of the 400 Yard IM. 

Cizmar improved on his seed time by 1.5 seconds at 4:00.70 to make it to Thursday night's final.  By doing so he can finish anywhere between ninth and 16th place and guarantees the Storm team their first points of the meet. 

Milinkovskyi finished in 4:02.59 to place 17th for the second straight day.  He has one race left in the championships. 

Wednesday March 14

PAINESVILLE, OHIO - Sophomore Julian Milinkovskyi (Ukraine) opened up the 2012 NCAA Division II Swimming and Diving National Championship for Lake Erie College with a 17th place finish in the 200 Yard IM. 

Milinkovskyi finished the race in 1:51.34 to earn points for the Storm.  However he did not qualify for tonight's A or B finals.

Milinkovskyi came into the meet seeded third in the 200 Yard IM after winning the GLIAC Championship in the event in February. 

Milinkovskyi and freshman Ivan Cizmar (Zagreb, Croatia/) will be in action tomorrow for the 400 yard IM.  The duo is seeded 14th and 16th in that race respectively. 

-LEC-