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Thursday, Mar 28, 2024

Swimming & Diving Find Early Success in New Year

Coming off of a training trip to Florida during the first week of winter break, men’s and women’s Swimming and Diving started the New Year with a splash. The men have had a three-meet winning streak in their matchups with Colby on January 3 (206-83), Springfield College on January 10 (175-123), and Bates on January 11 (151-137). The women have also performed well, edging Colby 199.5-84.5 and Springfield 156-142, and suffering a mere six-point loss to Bates (152-146) last Sunday.

According to Maddy Berkman ’15, one of the women’s captains, the team has further improved upon the strong endurance base developed during their training in Florida and throughout the season by “really honing in on technique work and more specific training.”

On the deep end of the pool, divers Adrianna Baker ’15 and Dylan Peters ’16 have made important point contributions, with Baker claiming both the one-meter and three-meter titles against Colby, and Peters ’16 sweeping the 3-meter competition against Bates.

In the Panthers’ first two face-offs against Colby and Springfield, both the men and women’s 200 individual medley and 200 freestyle relays finished first, showing off the depth of the team with swimmers contributing from every class year. Especially impressive at Colby was both teams’ ability to win 12 out of the 16 contested events.

In facing off against Colby, Connor McCormick ’18 demonstrated his skill in both short and long distance with wins in the 1000 freestyle (10:05.82) and the 100 breaststroke (1:03.93), Justin Cho ’17 took the 100 back (56.59), and Bryan Cheuk ’16 won the 50 freestyle (21.88). Alex Smith ’18 edged Stephan Koenigsberger ’16 by just .01 in the 100 fly (53.94).

On the women’s side facing Colby, Caitlin Carroll ’17 won the 1000 freestyle (11:09.14), Kelly Delane ’18 the 500 freestyle (5:24.27), Jennifer Koide ’17 the 100 breaststroke (1:11.88), and Lydia Carpenter ’15 the 50 freestyle (24.87).

The Colby and Springfield meets —which included 50 yard sprinting events not just in freestyle as usual, but also in backstroke, breaststroke, and butterfly, and the shorter 100 yard individual medley — provided more opportunities for the Panthers to show their speed.

Some of these victories against Colby included Jamie Hillas ’15 (30.23) and Andy Lee ’15 (28.65) winning the 50 breaststroke, Claire Treesh ’17 and Justin Cho clocking respective times of 30.26 and 25.97 to dominate the men’s and women’s 50 back, Bryan Cheuk ’16 won the 50 fly (24.23), and Andy Grant ’17 (56.94) claimed the men’s 100 individual medley title.

In the Springfield meet, Hillas ’15 broke her own school record by .01 seconds in the 100 individual medley with a time of 59.50, edging the second place finisher by almost 5 seconds. Hillas also won the 50 fly (26.54) and the 100 fly (58.88), while Sarah Bartholomae ’18 (29.19) won the 50 and 100 back (29.19 and 1:01.90).

The men won 10 out of 16 events against Springfield. Matthew Lantin ’18 had two personal victories in the 200 freestyle (1:46.86) and the 500 freestyle (4:46.19), and other highlights include wins by Teddy Kuo ’15 in the 100 fly (55.12), Paul Lagasse ’15 in the 100 freestyle (49.84), McCormick ’18 in the 100 individual medley (56.40), and Michael McGean ’17 in the 1000 freestyle (9:54.06).

The most recent home meet against Bates on January 11 featured some longer distance events, with 400 yard instead of 200 yard relays, and a 1650 freestyle. The women won the 400 individual medley relay (3:59.45) and the 400 freestyle relay (3:36.41), while McGean touched the wall first after 66 laps in the 1650 freestyle (16:28.26).

First-years Taylor Moore ’18 and McCormick came out on top of their heats in the 100 freestyle (49.15) and 400 individual medley (4:17.56), respectively.

Koenigsberger ’16 dominated the breaststroke events with a 59.22 in the 100 breaststroke and a 2:09.58 in the 200 breaststroke. In a repeat of previous performances, Cheuk won the 50 freestyle, and Lantin claimed the 200 and 500 freestyle.

“This team is great at taking on challenging workouts while having fun,” said Kuo, who attributes the team’s success in the past three meets to their ability to “feed off each other’s excitement and energy.”

“Though the women’s team lost to Bates this past weekend, we’ve still had some awesome swims,” said Berkman ’15. “I think our confidence level is slowly building. As we get closer and closer to NESCACs I think we’re starting to focus on what we need to.”

The future looks bright for Panther Swimming and Diving as they head into a matchup against Union College on Saturday, January 17 in Schenectady, N.Y.


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