Swim team glides to an easy victory

Author: Jake Cohen

The Middlebury Panthers flashed their fins last weekend in a crushing defeat of the Connecticut College swim team in the season opener. Even the whopping scores of the men's (168-116) and women's (170-112) victories are hardly reflective of the dominant performance by Middlebury swimmers. Marika Ross '08 won four events, two individual and two relays, earning NESCAC Performer of the Week and a bid to the national competition - all in the first weekend of the season. For the men, Schyuler Beeman '10 and first-year Ryan Marklewitz dictated the pace of the meet with four first-place finishes combined.

Middlebury and Connecticut College never faced each other head-to-head last season, but that lack of experience seemed to hardly matter. John Dillon '10 won the 200-yard butterfly with a time of 1:58.45, an astronomical four seconds faster than the second place finisher. Beeman won the 100-yard backstroke by two seconds and missed the victory in an exhilarating 50-yard freestyle by only .02 seconds to Conn. College sophomore Pat Troy. Beeman and Troy have been constant adversaries in the pool. Last year, Beeman beat Troy by .5 seconds at the national competition and is confident he will finish on top.

"Schuyler swam a great race today," said Patrick Burton '10. "He is a great swimmer and he will definitely end up on top by the end of the season."

Marklewitz placed second in the 200-yard freestyle, beating captain Robbie Burton '08 and freestyle powerhouse Kevin O'Rourke '09, who placed third and fourth. He also won the 200-yard backstroke by nearly three seconds. For the men's team, the tone of this meet truly raised the bar for the remainder of the season.

Led by Ross, the women's squad was even more dominant than the men were. They swept the 50-yard freestyle, taking all three podium positions with strong performances from Pam Chatikavanij '08, Emily MacDonald '11 and Katie Remington '10. Seniors Anna Flores '08 and Katie Chambers '08 placed first and second in the 200-yard breaststroke, each finishing over a second ahead of Connecticut College's best effort. Katie Soja '10 won the exhausting 1,000-yard freestyle convincingly, beating the second-place finisher by over a minute.

"The girls absolutely stole the show today," said Patrick Burton. "They swam very well and have set an incredible tone for the rest of the season."

At the end of the day, the women's team won 11 out of 16 events, sending out a message loud and clear to other NESCAC teams: Middlebury comes to play.

Perhaps the most exciting performance came from Ross. As if her three-second victory in the 200-yard butterfly was not impressive enough, she went on to win three other events. She blew away the competition in the 100-yard butterfly, set the tone in the 200-yard medley victory and swam the fastest leg (24.60) of the 200-yard freestyle relay. She currently holds the Middlebury pool and NESCAC records in the 200-yard butterfly and is the defending national champion in both the 100- and 200-yard butterfly.

The swimming and diving team heads to Amherst this weekend as they try and continue its winning ways. The first swimmers will dive into the pool at 1 p.m.