Blue Swimming & Diving Downs Five Pool Records in 195-98 Win at Simmons
BOSTON, Mass. – Wellesley College swimming and diving broke five pool records, including a pair by sophomore diver Maura Sticco-Ivins (Framingham, Mass.), en-route to a 195-98 victory this afternoon over host Simmons College at the Holmes Sports Center Natatorium in Boston, Mass.
The Blue improve to 1-0 following their first dual meet, while the Sharks fall to 3-1.
Sticco-Ivins tied for the team lead with 18 points, winning the one-meter diving event with a pool-record score of 294.07, eclipsing the former mark by nearly 30 points. She later set a new pool standard on the three-meter board with a mark of 319.50 to bury the former record by more than 63 points.
First year Karen Wang (Holmdel, N.J.) also racked up 18 points for Wellesley and easily won the 400-yard individual medley with a pool-record time of 4:40.42 to wipe out the old mark by more than 13 seconds. Earlier in the meet, Wang won the 200-yard butterfly with a time of 2:12.61.
Senior Dorothy Ren (San Jose, Calif.) set a pool record of her own when she hit the wall first in the 100-yard backstroke with a clip of 59.96 as the first swimmer to crack the minute-barrier at the Holmes Sports Center. Ren later won the 100-yard butterfly with a time of 59.23.
Senior Charlotte Harris (Cincinnati, Ohio) also won a pair of events for the Blue, winning both breaststroke events. Harris won the 200-yard event with a mark of 2:31.24 after clocking in at 1:09.26 to capture the 100-yard race.
Junior Miriam Swisher (Albuquerque, N.M.) led Simmons and all competitors with three individual victories on the day. Swisher hit the wall first in the 200-yard freestyle by more than three seconds with a time of 1:57.69. She followed that effort with a first-place showing in the 50-yard freestyle with a time of 25.01 and won the 200-yard backstroke with a time of 2:14.69 to give her 21 points on the afternoon. First year Laura Simpson (Perkiomenville, Pa.) also won multiple events for the Sharks, taking the 500-yard freestyle with a school and pool-record time of 5:19.43. She eclipsed the former 16-year old benchmark by seven one-hundreths of a second to better Cindy Hoffman's effort from 1999. Simpson also won the 1000-yard freestyle by almost 55 seconds with a time of 11:08.76.
The other individual first place finish for the day went to Wellesley first year Cathy Chen (Parsippany, N.J.), who won the 100-yard freestyle by just 0.17 seconds with a time of 55.80.
The Blue capped the meet with another pool record, winning the 200-freestyle relay behind lead leg sophomore Patricia Chen (Natick, Mass.), senior Ieva Galinyte (Irvine, Calif.), first year Crystal Zhu (Chelmsford, Mass.) and anchor leg Cathy Chen in a time of 1:40.83. Wellesley opened the meet with a relay victory as well, courtesy of Ren, Harris, first year Cathy Ye (Vancouver, B.C.) and anchor Cathy Chen, who helped the squad finish first in the 200-yard medley relay with a time of 1:50.90.
Simmons returns to action on Saturday, November 21 when it hosts University of New England at the Holmes Sports Center at 1:00 p.m., while the Blue travel to Hartford, Conn. to compete in a quad meet on the same day vs. Trinity College, Clark University and Hamilton College.
Courtesy Simmons College Athletic Communications