College Swimming & Diving
Rider's Funk, Carter Honored by the MAAC
LAWRENCEVILLE--Johnny Funk (Las Vegas, Nev./Southeast Career & Tech. Academy) of the Rider University men's swimming and diving team was named Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference Male Swimmer of the Week and Aisley Carter (Clarksburg, Md./Walter Johnson) of the Rider women's swimming and diving team was named MAAC Female Diver of the Week for all competition November 8-14, it was announced by the conference office Tuesday.
Funk, a 5-11, 160 pound sophomore who swims free, back, IM and fly for the Broncs, was the winner in the 100 back (51.89) and 200 IM (1:55.48) in Rider's tri-meet against La Salle and Delaware on November 13.
"Johnny is a consistent performer who responds to challenging races," said head coach Steve Fletcher. "He's
racing smarter in his sophomore year, and he continues to achieve lifetime
bests unrested."
Carter, a 5-5 senior, was the runner-up in both the one-meter and three-meter dive events as Rider split with La Salle and Delaware. Carter scored 206.55 in the one-meter and 212.10 in the three-meter as the Broncs defeated La Salle, 162-135, and Delaware defeated Rider, 186-101.
"Our team is relying on Aisley every meet in her events as the lone female
diver on the squad," Fletcher said. "She is a tough competitor, has a strong desire to see
her training produce results and has also been emerging as a positive, vocal
leader on the team."
"Being awarded with MAAC Diver of the Week for the first time feels great," Carter said. "As far as our season goes, we're only halfway through and continuously have been
pushing one another and training really hard. We're all really pumped to go
against our competition at the Princeton meet and see how we finish up. We
don't get to swim or dive against a majority of these bigger teams so it's
awesome when we can compete against these teams as well as get our school name out there."
"As the only female diver for the Broncs this year, Aisley has had a lot of
pressure to perform well," said diving coach Kristen Ceppa. "Being the competitor that she is and having her four
male teammates to push and support her, Aisley has responded tremendously and
it's showing in her performances."
Funk currently has the fastest 100 back (51.89), third fastest 50 back (25.02), fourth fastest 100 fly (51.95) and seventh fastest 100 free time (48.36) in the MAAC this season.
"In our journey of a season, it is always nice to receive some recognition
along the way," Funk said. "Our season is going well and we are going to need to pick up the intensity
going into Princeton."
As a freshman, Funk placed second in the 200 back (1:51.68), was fourth in the 100 back (52.56) and placed fourth in the 200 IM (1:51.89) at the 2010 MAAC championships and swam the second leg of the runner-up 800 free relay that set a Rider record with a time of 6:49.90.
As a junior, Carter finished second in the one-meter dive at the 2010 MAAC championships, only behind record setting teammate Amanda Burke, with a career best score (241.35).
Funk, a Business Administration major and Carter, a General Liberal Arts and Science major, are the fifth and sixth swimmers or divers from Rider to earn conference recognition this season.
Rider competes at Princeton's Big Al Open December 3-5.
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