Swimming Drowns Out Rhode Island

The Plymouth State women’s swimming and diving team secured their second win of the season as they hosted Rhode Island College this past Saturday afternoon. Plymouth topped RIC by also 40 points to make their record 2-2 for the season. “In our meet against RIC, everyone performed really well! We really came together as a team to cheer each other on and won by a lot” senior Megan Gresham (Waterbury Center, VT) said about the meet.

Ellie Wilson (Darnestown, MD) won the 1000-yard freestyle and then went on to take the 50-yard breaststroke in under 40 seconds. Cammie Turell (Bowie MD) secured herself two wins as well as she beat her personal best time in the 50-yard freestyle. Finishing with a time of 1:01.05 in the 100-yard freestyle, she took first place in that as well.

Gresham won the 100-yard butterfly and broke her personal record as well with a time of 1:07.88. “My 100 Fly race left me breathless and made me fall in love with swimming all over again. It was the type of race that people actually want to watch since it was such a close one. There was no way I was going to let the girl from RIC beat me. It felt great to win and to get my collegiate best time so far.”

Freshman Jasmine Santiago (Leominster, MA) gained herself a first-place win in the 200-yard freestyle, finishing with a 2:18.54 time. Classmate Madelin Svetin (Topsham, ME) was the last Panther to break a personal record as she competed in the 100-yard backstroke and stopped the time at 1:08.87.

The team of Svetin, Gresham, Santiago, and Turell worked together to win the 400-yard freestyle relay and finish with a time of 4:15.18.

Gresham hopes to keep dropping her time in the 100-yard freestyle and improve her time in the 200-yard as well. She has yet to compete in that division yet but hopefully will be shortly. The team, this year compared to last, has a lot more experience as the team last year was young. Gresham hopes to secure more wins as a team and says “to accomplish these goals, we need to work together as a team. In swimming, it is really easy to focus on yourself and your own personal goals and not care about the team as a whole. The team needs to work on being more of team players which would include working hard at practice even when the practices aren't geared toward their stroke, swimming events that maybe they're not comfortable with and encouraging teammates.”

The team will compete again this Saturday as they travel down to Westfield State. Swimmers are set to start at 1 p.m. They will be back in the pool January 5^th for the Alumni Meet at PSU after celebrating the holidays.