Women’s swimming and diving capped off the 2011-2012 season last weekend by playing host to this year’s NESCAC Championships. The Cardinals had plenty of reasons to be proud when all was said and done on Sunday night: five school records, six top-eight finishes, and an overall team finish of eighth place.

In keeping with the precedent meets this season, the freshman class made the biggest splash for the Cardinals. Angela Slevin ’15 led off the 400-medley relay by swimmming 100 yards of backstroke in 0:58.45 to not only set a school record for that event, but also to pave the way for the rest of her relay squad—Rachel Hirsch ’15, Alyssa Savarino ’14, and Cara Colker-Eybel ’13—to set a record of 3:36.50. Later in the weekend, Elizabeth Baumgartner ’15 joined Savarino, Slevin, and Colker-Eybel in the 400-freestyle relay, as that squad went 3:34.86 to set yet another record.

Thanks in large part to the training program implemented this year by interim coach Frank Keefe, two returning swimmers set individual records as well. Co-captain Julia Fram ’12 went 4:37.37 in the 400-yard individual medley, and Colker-Eybel swam 2:08.51 in the 200-yard Individual Medley to improve by 0.56 seconds on the record she set as a freshman. Colker-Eybel also qualified for the NCAA Division III B-Cut in the event by finishing fifth at NESCACs.

The Cardinals managed top-eight finishes in six events in total. Colker-Eybel chased her fifth-place 200-yard butterfly with a sixth-place 200-yard freestyle with a time of 1:53.29. Roxy Capron ’14 joined her as the only other swimmer with top-eight finishes in multiple events, earning sixth and fifth in the 100- and 200-yard breaststroke with times of 1:06.92 and 2:25.82, respectively. Hirsch followed Capron in eighth place in the 200-yard breaststroke at 2:27.10, and Slevin came in sixth in the 100-yard backstroke at 58.77.

With the season now in the rearview mirror, Wesleyan women’s swimming and diving bids farewell to its four seniors, Rachel Cohen, Rhyan Toledo, and co-captains Julia Fram and Emily Goettsche. While this core group will undoubtably be missed, the exploits of the 2011-2012 underclassmen suggest a bright future for the program.