Ben Blotner
Senior Sports Writer
The College of Wooster women’s swimming and diving team cruised to a 202-92 victory over Westminster College (DII) while the men’s team came up short by a score of 172.5-125.5, leading to a split in the Saturday, Oct. 10 dual meet.
“We knew Westminster was going to present us with some challenges in our dual meet with them, particularly on the men’s side,” said Head Coach Rob Harrington. “As the meet progressed, I feel our performances improved. I am pleased with the way the team performed for this point in the season. We had many in-season best performances.”
The women got off to a strong start by winning the 200-yard medley relay with a time of 1:53.36. Hannah Langer ’21 got the team going by completing her leg of the race in 29.03 seconds before Brooke Brown ’21 swam the anchor leg in a blazing 24.93 seconds to seal the victory. Molly Likins ’22 and Leah Jorn ’21 bridged the gap from Langer to Brown. The men’s relay team completed the same event in 1:39.24, but fell to Westminster by less than a second for a tough defeat.
In the 1000-yard freestyle, Wooster’s women pulled off a sweep as Emma Fikse ’19, Kera Sells ’21 and Paige Sogandares ’21 finished first, second and third, respectively, out of the six swimmers competing. This was one of six sweeps the women pulled off on the day. Fikse in particular blew away the competition with a time of 11:07.78, best in the event by over 30 seconds. Much like Fikse did for the women, Wooster’s Cameron Gelwicks ’19 dominated the 1000-yard freestyle for the men, finishing nearly 30 seconds ahead of the next-best swimmer. Doak Schultz ’22 also turned in a solid performance as the men won the event.
Nell Kacmarek ’20 led the way for the women in the 200-yard freestyle, taking first place with a time of 2:03.81. Ryan Campbell ’19 and Wyatt Foss ’21 took second and third, respectively, in the men’s event. The women completed another sweep in the 100-yard backstroke, with Langer, Mia Chen ’22 and Kate Murphy ’21 getting the job done. In the 100-yard breaststroke, it was Likins, Rachel Mandel ’19 and Allison Clough ’19 putting together another sweep for the women, while Burke Poeting ’19 was a standout in another tough loss for the men. The women’s 200-yard butterfly sweep was completed by Anne Bowers ’21, Kalla Sturonas ’19 and Annabelle Hopkins ’19. Trey Schopen ’20 led the men to a butterfly victory.
The 50-yard freestyle saw the women finally allow a Westminster swimmer into the top three for a change, but Fikse and Brown still finished in the top two spots. Gelwicks and Poeting did the same in the men’s triumph. Fikse finished first yet again in the 100-yard freestyle for a Wooster win, but on the men’s side, they could not prevail despite top-four finishes from Campbell and Foss.
The women continued their dominant day with two more sweeps in the 200-yard backstroke, in which Langer, Chen and Claire Cerne ’21 were the top three finishers, along with the 200-yard breaststroke, where Likins, Madison Whitman ’21 and Mandel made the winning flight.
Kacmarek and Mady Ferguson ’20 finished top-two in the women’s 500-yard freestyle for yet another win, while Gelwicks’ first-place finish was key for the men. Bowers, Heidi Likins ’21 and Jorn all finished in the top four for the women on the 100-yard butterfly.
In the 400-yard individual medley, Whitman finished well ahead of the pack to pace the women, with Gluck and Schultz ending up in the top three for the men. The final event of the day was the 200-yard freestyle relay. Wooster’s women completed their undefeated performance thanks to the swimming of Fikse, Murphy, Likins and Brown, and the men ended on a high note with a win from Poeting, Gelwicks, Schopen and Campbell.
“We were really pumped to beat a DII team,” Mandel said. “We also look forward to other meets and harder competition.”
The swimming and diving teams see their next action on Saturday, Nov. 17 at Oberlin College, where each team will compete against Oberlin and Wittenberg University.
(Photo from Wooster Athletics)