Swimming in the imposing Coast Guard pool had little effect on the aquatic section of Cardinal athletics, as the men’s and women’s sectors split Saturday’s meet. The men fell 166-123, but the women drubbed the Coast Guard squad by a score of 191-105.
On the women’s end of the pool, Chris Andrews ’07 had a career day. She finished first in two events, the 1000-yard freestyle and the 100-yard butterfly, with respective times of 10:49.66 and 1:03.44. She was the only competitor to complete the 1000-yard race in less than eleven minutes.
“I just liked how it all came together in the last meet. It really meant something for the seniors,” she said.
Andrews finished second in the 100-yard freestyle event behind teammate Joanna Tice ’07, who finished in 56.39 seconds. Andrews was also the lead swimmer in the third-place 200-yard free relay team of Andrews, Stephanie Lasby ’06, Laura Ouimette ’06, and Miriam Jacobs ’05.
Tice also had a strong meet. She was part of the winning team in the 200-yard medley relay, which also featured Mikki Columbus ’05, Amanda Gordon ’07, and Eliza Jones ’07. Additionally, Tice won the 50-yard freestyle.
The women’s diving team contributed to the day. Diving Coach Pat Pyrch cited Captain Zoe Goldberg’s ’04 performance on the three-meter board as the best of her life. She finished third in the event, helping the Cardinals to sweep the top three.
Susanna Morrison ’07 won the event with a score of 172.6. She began with strong dives: an inward dive, a front 1.5 [somersaults], and a reverse dive, which garnered scores of 19, 18, and 17 respectively. She tailed off after those three, but by then she had all but clinched the event. Second-place Janina Zorn ’06 and Goldberg finished with scores of 162.3 and 159.4. They were the only competitors.
Morrison also won the one-meter event as Zorn and Ariel Fagen ’07 comprised the top three.
“The kids were doing some newer, harder dives, so we had a pretty solid meet all the way around,” said Pyrch.
By most estimates, the men swam better than their final score.
“They [Coast Guard] are a little bit stronger on the front end, and they’re stroke guys are a little bit stronger than we were, so they won the medley. We won the free relay,” said head coach Mary Bolich. “We’re a little stronger in the freestyles. So the way it matched up, they ended up being a little bit stronger than us in some of the stroke events.”
In fact, the Birds won every freestyle event except for the 50 and 100-yard events, both of which had a Cardinal swimmer finishing less than one second behind the winner. One of the meet’s big winners was Ben Byers ’07, who again won both the 500 and 1000-yard free with times of 4:56.08 and 10:21.48. Rob Mitchell ’06 was two seconds behind when he touched the wall to end his 500. Though he did not dominate as much as he did in the previous two meets, he still finished nearly ten seconds ahead of the runner-up in the 1000. Byers also clinched a third race, the 400 yard individual medley in 4:26.44. Finishing second and third were Zach Webster ’06 and Luke Schleusener ’07, with respective times of 4:35.20 and 4:46.73.
“If you look at the scores, you’ll find that we’re also strong in the distance and IM’s,” said Bolich.
The team of Josh Tanz ’06, Dan Devine ’06, John Haley ’07, and Co-Captain Tom Cleveland ’06 won the 200 free relay, but other than the freestyle and IM, the men finished second or third in most events.
Eric Altheu ’07, the only Cardinal competitor in the men’s diving competitions, had a solid day. He finished second in the one-meter event with a score of 160.85 and third in the three-meter, scoring 154.5.
The Women’s NESCAC Championships are here at the Freeman Athletic Center February 20-22, and the men’s team heads to Bowdoin for its championships the following weekend, February 27-29.
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