Swarthmore Women's Swimming Takes Record-Breaking CC Championship Gold
Swarthmore Women's Swimming Takes Record-
Breaking Centennial Conference Championship Gold
by Ana Apostoleris '13
2/24/12
The Swarthmore College women's swim team ran rampant over the record books en route to a hard-fought fourth-place finish (527 points) in the Centennial Conference Championship meet held last weekend in Gettyburg, Pa.
Prior to the meet, the most gold medals any individual Swarthmore swimmer had earned in a championship meet was three; this year, three different Garnet women bested that record - Supriya Davis '15, Kate Wiseman '15, and Margaret Regan '14. In total, Swarthmore swimmers won 10 separate events, beating the previous record of eight set in 1999.
Leading the charge was Davis, whose six gold medals won her Female Most Outstanding Performer honors. Davis, from Chapel Hill, N.C., becomes the first Garnet woman to be named Most Outstanding Performer since Alice Bonarou '99 in 1999, and was the first freshman to receive the honor since 1995.
Coming into the day with four first-place finishes, Davis demolished the field in the 200 butterfly for her third individual win. Her time of 2:03.88 was nearly seven seconds ahead of her closest competitor, teammate Erin Lowe '14 (2:10.55), and also qualified as an NCAA Division 3 B-cut, her third of the meet.
Wiseman, from Nashville, Tenn., was almost as prolific in her successes, winning five golds and setting two individual school records. After winning the 50 freestyle on Friday, she once again asserted her dominance in the sprints, touching first in the 100 (53.09) and shattering a Swarthmore program record that had stood for 13 years.
Montclair, N.J., native Regan also took home four gold medals, following up on Saturday's 400 IM win with a victory and a Gettysburg pool record in the 200 breaststroke (2:25.26).
In the final event of the meet, the all-star team of Lowe, Davis, Wiseman, and Rebecca Teng '14 went out on a high note in the 4x100 freestyle relay, winning in a time of 3:34.67 that outpaced the previous Swarthmore record by nearly three seconds. Trailing by over three seconds after the first leg of the race, the Garnet women charged from behind and, on the backs of blistering sub-53 splits by Davis and Wiseman, out-touched second-place Ursinus by over a second.
Other impressive swims included Naomi Glassman '12 (8th place, 2:21.25) and Hannah Gotwals '13 (9th place, won B-final, 2:15.37) in the 100 butterfly, and Teng (8th place, 2:15.60) and Jacqueline Scala '12 (10th, 2:15.24) in the 200 backstroke.
Davis' six gold medals is just one shy of the Centennial Conference Championship record of seven for a single championship, trailing only Washington College's Rachel Glasser (2010) and F&M's Jenna Walters (2004).
Every Swarthmore medal was won by an underclassman.
