Last weekend’s Wooster Invitational marked the end of the fall portion of The College of Wooster men’s and women’s swimming and diving seasons. The women’s team finished fourth out of 10 teams while the men’s team finished eighth. Although both the men’s and women’s teams had hoped for greater team success, the weekend brought numerous individual highlights.
Highlighting the women’s individual performances was Mariah McGovern ’14. She finished third in the 1650 freestyle with a time of 18:09.38. She also finished eighth in the 100 backstroke (1:02.27) and was victorious in the 500 freestyle consolation heat, placing ninth (5:15.91).
Samira El-Adawy ’13, Melissa Haug ’12 and Priscilla Haug ’12 all finished fifth in their respective events. El-Adawy finished the 400 IM in 4:41.78.
Melissa Haug finished the 200 fly in 2:12.82 while Priscilla Haug† finished the 200 breaststroke in 2:10.91. The relay combination of McGovern, Kate Hunt ë14, El-Adawy and Melissa Haug claimed fifth place in the 800 freestyle with a time of 8:02.00.
Although the men’s squad finished in eighth place there were many individual successes. Peter Parisi ’13 broke The College of Wooster school records in both the 100 butterfly and 100 breaststroke. Parisi recorded a record time of 50:99 in the 100 butterfly preliminariess and finished runner-up in the championship heat that afternoon. Parisi also posted a school record 58.55 in the 100 breaststroke preliminaries. He would also finished runner-up in the championship heat later in the day.
Although Parisi provided invaluable points to the men’s squad, he could not do it alone. Parisi also helped the Scots’ top relay performance. Parisi, Brett Dawson ’11, Brendan Horgan ’11 and Imre Namath ’14 finished fourth-place in the 200 medley relay with a time of 1:36.96.
Unfortunately, their individual success ultimately fell short, as the men’s squad finished the invitational with 620 points, a mere six points behind fifth -place Allegheny College.
Ending the fall season, the men’s team has amassed a 0-6 record while the women conclude at 6-1. The men’s team hopes that the month away from competition will help them rebuild. Coach Rob Harrington understood the challenges that the men’s squad faced coming into this season.
“We have a lot of hopefuls, people who show a lot of potential. I don’t think you can count us out by any means. I think we can get to a similar position in the conference to where we were last year, but it will take a lot of work to get there. We’re in a rebuilding process,” Harrington said.
The swimming teams will host Hiram College on Jan. 7.