The men’s and women’s swimming teams spent their weekend hosting the annual Cardinal Invitational, which featured Hamilton, Fairfield, Clark University, Trinity, and WPI. Both Cardinal teams found success in the pool; the Wesleyan men placed second in the meet, and the women earned the coveted first-place position.
The Cardinal men finished 16 points behind the first-place Continentals, as Hamilton collected 1,201 points to Wesleyan’s 1,185. Kuan Huang ’12 had a productive weekend for the Cardinals, capturing first in the 50, 100, and 200 breaststroke races and improving his margin of victory in each of his swims.
“We did not start out the first session fully prepared and focused, but we came back strong and this weekend we had a couple of good races,” said Huang. “We are really looking forward to improving our team conditioning as the season proceeds. We have great potential in this team.”
This potential was certainly noted in the 100 IM, which proved to be the Cardinals’ best event of the meet. Michael Bailey ’11 claimed first place but was closely trailed by Huang. Another wearer of red and black, Brendan Fortin ’13, zoomed in to snatch the third place spot. The Cardinals effectively swept the board in this race and gave a glimpse of the damage the team could inflict in future races.
J.P. Valette ’10 also produced strong results this weekend. Valette placed first in both the one-meter and the three-meter dives. Gianfranco Galluzzo ’12 also fared well on the boards, taking second in both dives. The diving team was also challenged by Fairfield, which brought only divers to Middletown.
The Cardinal women also produced a strong team effort over the weekend. The Cardinals took first with 1,291 points, far exceeding the second-place Hamilton team, which finished the weekend with 970 points. Cara Colker-Eybel ’13 continued her impressive freshman debut, tallying 117 individual points for the team. Colker-Eybel showed her versatility by finishing first in the 200 IM, 100 free, 50 fly, and the 100 fly. Colker-Eybel also had a second-place effort in the 100 breast. Cara Madden ’11, Rachel Cohen ’12, and Janine Zaltsman ’11 joined Colker-Eybel to capture first place in the 800 free relay. Another notable performance from the weekend is Madden’s first-place finish in the 200 free.
Colker-Eybel’s accolades from the weekend do not end with her collection of first-place performances—she also broke the school record in the 100 IM with a winning time of 1:01.41. It is a very rare occurrence to break a school record this early in the season, but Colker-Eybel beat the previous team record held by All-American Amanda Shapiro ’08 by 1.12 seconds.
“The Cardinal Invite was fun because we got to swim many different individual events and relays,” said Colker-Eybel. “I think everyone on the team was pretty tired because we had had a tough week of practices, and the meet itself was really draining. For the girls’ team, we won the meet by a substantial margin, so we were all pretty excited about that.”
Both teams will conclude their first-semester debut on Saturday, hosting Trinity in their second dual meet of the season. The Cardinal men will be looking to extend their dominance over the Bantams, who have not defeated Wesleyan since 1982, while the Wesleyan women will look to improve to 21-1-1 in their last 23 meets against Trinity. The action will begin at 11am in the Wesleyan Natatorium.
Leave a Reply