The NESCAC women’s swim and dive championships were held Feb. 18-20 at Williams College. The Wesleyan Cardinals headed up to Williamstown for an action-packed weekend with their sights set on a high NESCAC finish. Wesleyan brought a 9-4 record, including their 5-4 mark in dual meets, to the eleven-team meet. Over a grueling weekend, they had a great deal of success, most notably two school records. Cara Colker-Eybel ’13 notched the first school record time, surging to a sixth-place finish in the 100m freestyle with a time of 52.82, the best time in Cardinal history, and good enough for a NCAA Division III B qualification. Colker-Eybel, who was the Cardinals’ only NESCAC performer of the week this season, had a hand in the other new school record set over the weekend, anchoring the 400m freestyle relay to a time of 3:34.84. This school record was also good enough for an NCAA “B” cut. She was joined by co-captain Cara Madden ’11, Ally Anderson ’13, and Alyssa Savarino ’14. Colker-Eybel was the Cardinals’ top scorer, with three top-eight individual finishes, swimming the 200m freestyle and 200m individual medley well enough for NCAA “B” cuts. Madden placed eighth in the 100m freestyle and the 100m backstroke. The other top-eight Cardinal finish was secured by Naima Ford ‘11, who dove for 378.80 points and fifth place in the one-meter dive. Rounding out the top-ten finishes were a ninth place performance from Rachel Cohen ’12 in the 1000m freestyle and a tenth place mark from Tess Lemon ’14 in the 200m breaststroke.

At the end of the weekend, the hosting Williams team emerged victorious, with a winning score of 1961 points, while the Cardinals finished eighth out of 11 teams with 629 points, an improvement from ninth place last season. This meet concluded the action for the 2010-11 women’s swim and dive season, a year in which the squad notched their fourth consecutive winning campaign. The men’s swim and dive team will take its crack at the NESCAC championships this coming weekend, Feb. 25-27, as the team will trek up to Bowdoin College looking to improve on its seventh place finish in 2010.