Middlebury men’s and women’s swimming and diving traveled to Amherst College’s Pratt Pool last Saturday, Dec. 5 to race against the Lord Jeffs in their first dual meet of the season. Both the Panther men and women fell to their hosts, emerging from the meet with very similar scores of 173.5-111 and 177.5-111.5, respectively.
“Dual meets are always a great opportunity to get up and race while we’re in the middle of our training,” women’s co-Captain Lily Sawyer ’16 said.
Isabel Wyer ’18, Liza MacCowatt ’19, Megan Griffin ’16 and Morgan Burke ’17 were some of Middlebury’s first off the blocks for the 200 medley relay, and their time of 1:50.50 secured second place for the Panthers.
In the next race, Lucy Scott ’16 finished less than three seconds behind Amherst’s Marie Maxwell (first) to take third in the 1000 free.
Burke placed third in the 100 free (54.12), touching the wall just 0.12 and 0.07 seconds behind the top two Amherst swimmers, while Alaina Pribis ’19 finished the 500 free a heartbreaking 0.16 seconds behind Lord Jeff Charlotte Chudy to notch another third place finish for the Panthers.
Wyer left her competitors in the 200 free in her wake with a time of 1:55.45, and first-year Grace Stimson ’19 took first in the 200 IM (2:14.77).
Stimson touched the wall just 1.10 seconds before Pierce (2:15.87), and Katie Aman ’19 captured third in the IM event with her 2:18.48-second swim.
“We beat Amherst for the first time in a long time last year, so they came back with a vengeance,” said Maddie Pierce ’16, Sawyer’s co-captain. “[However,] we came off a tough week of training, and the team performed really well given that.”
Burke, Griffin, Stephanie Andrews ’18 and Wyer later won the 400 free relay in a combined time of 3:41.96.
Sawyer’s other co-captain, Griffin, explained that “Coach Rueppel sees meets as extensions of training, so our goal was to race hard, have fun and not worry about times.”
On the men’s side, the Panthers’ ‘A’ entry — made up of Paul Lagasse ’16, Jack McLaughlin ’18, Brendan Leech ’19 and Bryan Cheuk ’16 — won the 400 free relay with a time of 3:14.04.
Individually, Michael McGean ’17 tied Lord Jeff Connor Haley to win the 1000 free (9:54.51).
Later, McGean (first) and Andrew Rosenthal ’16 (third) swept two of the top three spots in the men’s 500 free. McGean sealed his win by 7.45 seconds with a time of 4:50.94, while Rosenthal rounded out the podium with a 5:00.90.
Connor McCormick ’18 won the 200 IM with a time of 2:04.03.
Cheuk’s 21.86 in the 50 free earned him a third place finish as he came in just 0.74 seconds after the winner, and his 48.84 in the 100 free secured him second in that race.
Leech and Andy Grant ’17 earned overall points for Middlebury, swimming a 2:02.84 in the 200 backstroke and a 2:05.66 in the 200 IM respectively to place second in each of those events.
In the diving portion of the meet, both Will Greene ’19 (209.25) and Elissa DeNunzio ’18 (188.63) placed second on the 1-meter board to earn points for the Panthers, while DeNunzio led the competition in the 3-meter event (198.00).
“Overall, both the women’s and men’s teams had great swims this past weekend,” Griffin said. “It’s always fun to race against a NESCAC rival.”
When the teams began their official practices a few weeks ago, Head Coach Bob Rueppel pointed out that, “Not looking too far ahead is the key with such a long season.”
“Right now, [we] are focused on putting in the work for the last few weeks on campus before we head off to Florida for training camp [in late December and early January],” Pierce said.
Before the teams leave campus for their short winter break, the Panthers will host Springfield for their second dual meet of the season this Saturday, Dec. 12 at 1 p.m.
