This weekend the women’s swimming and diving teams traveled to Bowdoin to compete in the NESCAC Championships. Not only was the team competition intense, the individual competition was as well. Coming into the meet, the conference’s eleven teams could collectively claim nation-leading marks in three events and twelve national top-five marks. The Cardinals came prepared to battle and fought hard, just missing a repeat of their eighth-place finish from last year.
Despite the disappointing team showing, there were numerous bright spots from the weekend, including five school records.
Leading the Cardinals was Amanda Shapiro ’08, who snagged nearly 100 points for the Cardinals in just her individual events, and also broke her own school records in all three breaststroke events (50-yards, 100-yards and 200-yards). Although she did not win any of the three events, her third-place time in the 100-yard breaststroke, 1:04.79, was the fourth best time this year in Division III and earned her an automatic bid into the Division III National Championships since she swam faster than the qualifying standard of 1:05.36.
Her second-place time in the 200-yard backstroke (2:24.76) hit the ‘B’ (provisional) cut for Nationals, which is 2:27.79, and nearly hit the automatic ‘A’ standard of 2:23.79. As her 200-yard time is ninth fastest in Division III, she may make Nationals even without the automatic standard, as the fastest swimmers with the ‘B’ cut are usually let into the National meet to fill out the field in events where not many people have hit the ‘A’ standard.
Shapiro’s third school record came in her second-place performance the 50-yard breaststroke. By swimming 29.98 seconds, she is the first woman to break 30 seconds in school history.
Another big performer for the Cardinals was Kate Krems ’08, whose clutch performance in the 50-yard butterfly gave her a new personal best of 26.29 seconds, earned her second place in the meet, garnered her All-NESCAC honors, and broke her old school record of 26.41 seconds. Krems also got fifth in both the 100-yard and 200-yard butterfly events with times of 59.08 and 2:11.03 respectively.
Caitlin Bethlahmy ’09, who also had a good weekend, placed in the top 10 in both the 1000-yard freestyle and 200-yard backstroke events in her first NESCAC Championships. Her times of 10:53.89 and 2:11.98 respectively, both new personal records.
Bethlahmy, Krems and Shapiro teamed up with Agnes Kozco ’09 to place third and earn All-NESCAC honors in the 400-yard medley relay. With their time of 3:58.77 they also hit the ‘B’ cut for the D-III National Championships.
Although it appears that the relay team will not be swimming at that meet, which takes place Mar. 9 to 11 at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, Shapiro will certainly be swimming there as an individual in the 100-yard breaststroke and possibly in the 200-yard breaststroke. For the rest of the Cardinal swimmers, the season has come to an end, but the team has good reason to be excited for next year. Only one senior, Stephanie Lasby ’06, will be leaving the team. The Cardinal swimming and diving program is strengthening, and the next few years look to be as exciting as this one has been.
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