On Saturday, Jan. 24 Middlebury Swimming and Diving faced Williams College at home for their last dual meet of the season. The Panthers fell to the Ephs on both the men’s and women’s sides, losing 190.5-103.5 and 185-109 respectively. The highly ranked Ephs proved hard to beat, but the Panthers put up a fight with some fast swims, as Jamie Hillas ’15 even broke her own school record for the second time this season in the 100-yard individual medley (58.91).
The following weekend on Friday and Saturday, Jan. 30-31, the teams hosted the Middlebury Invitational, where they were able to compete with teams from Williams, Springfield, Tufts and the University of Vermont. Team scores were not recorded in this meet, but Middlebury swimmers placed highly in many events.
The men faced stiff competition from all of the teams at the meet. Only Michael McGean ’17 was able to win the 1000-yard free (9:35.08), but the Panther men secured a total of 10 second and third-place finishes in both relays and individual events. Both Stephan Koenigsberger ’16 and Matt Lantin ’18 placed in the top three in two different events, Koenigsberger in the 50-yard free (second, 21.65) and 100-yard fly (second, 51.99), and Lantin in the 200-yard free (third, 1:46.92) and 500-yard free (third, 4:43.51).
The women’s team found a bit more widespread success, starting and finishing the meet on top, with a win in the 200-yard freestyle relay by Hillas, Lydia Carpenter ’15, Ann Carpenter ’15 and Courtney Haron ’15 (1:38.98) to kick off the meet, and a victory in the 400-yard free relay by Hillas, Morgan Burke ’17, Ann Carpenter, and Haron (3:34.74) at the end.
For the rest of the meet, Middlebury women battled swimmers from Williams, Tufts and UVM for first-place finishes, earning five event victories as well as several second-place finishes. In addition to Hillas’s usual wins in the 200-yard individual medley (2:07.21) and the 100-yard fly (56.60), Kimberly Roos ’18 touched the wall first in the 1000-yard free (10:52.25), Claire Treesh ’17 won the 100-yard back (59.97) and Maddie Pierce ’16 clocked a 2:09.28 to win the 200-yard back.
“Four straight wins when not being well rested makes us excited to swim at our full potential at NESCACs,” co-Captain Teddy Kuo ’15 said.
“At this point, the women’s team is a week out of NESCACs and the men’s team is two weeks out. We’re fine tuning our swimming, sleeping a lot, and avoiding stairs to rest our legs,” co-Captain Lucas Avidan ’15 said.
The 28th-ranked men and the 8th-ranked women look forward to showcasing their hard work this season in the upcoming NESCAC all-conference meets. The women will race at Wesleyan on Feb. 13-15, while the men will host the meet here on Feb. 20-22.
