Swimming 5th in LEC

COURTESY PHOTO

The Plymouth State women’s swimming and diving team travelled down south this past Saturday to the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. There, they’d compete in the Little East Conference Championship with seven other teams. The team collectively ended with 129 points to grab 5^th place in the competition. Keene State went on to win it overall for the 13^th year but Plymouth would end up topping Western Connecticut and Rhode Island College.

“… I think we have a pretty strong team going… the challenge is though that we are going up against a lot of strong competition that we have and haven't raced against yet, so we don't know 100% what to expect” freshman Madelin Svetin (Topsham ME) commented about the upcoming New England Intercollegiate Swimming and Diving Association (NEISDA).

Casey Allaire (Mattapoisett MA) had a big day which resulted in LEC honors for her performance in the 1-meter and 3-meter dive. She would grab the title in the 1-meter from her score of 239.05 but came up short for the title in 3-meter. Sophomore Cammie Turell (Bowie MD) earned herself two fourth-place finishes for the day. First in the 50-yard freestyle, she posted a season-best of 26.09 second, which was almost three seconds better than her previous. Megan Gresham (Waterbury Center VT) also made a new personal record during her run in the 200-yard butterfly. Her time of 2:37:43 was almost six seconds faster than previous, which earned her a fifth-place finish. She grabbed the next spot up in the 100-yard butterfly with a finishing time of 1:09:66.

Freshman Jasmine Santiago (Leominster MA) was another setting a new record, getting a new time of 2:13:56 in the 200-yard freestyle and 2:29:76 in the 200-yard backstroke. Both of those finishes got her eighth place. Ellie Wilson (Darnestown MD) cut her time in the 1000-yard freestyle by over ten seconds to get a ninth-place finish. She would then go to compete with Svetin, Turell, and Gresham for the 200-yard medley relay, earning themselves sixth.

Svetin said she was overall impressed with the team’s performance, commenting about the several women who shaved time off their personal bests. Personally, she’s coming off an arm injury but says “overall, I would say it was a really great end of the regular season meet.”

The team has this weekend off in preparation for the NEISDA’s the following weekend. The four-day event will start on Thursday, February 21^st and go into the afternoon on Sunday the 24^th. MIT will be hosting these championships and start times are still TBA.