Swimming Ends on High Note

The women’s swimming and diving team traveled to MIT for a four-day event, capping their 2018-2019 season. The New England Intercollegiate Swimming and Diving Association started February 21^st and saw 18 teams competing.

The first say, Plymouth State saw a group of four compete in the 800-yard relay. Jasmine Santiago (Leominster MA), Ellie Wilson (Darnestown MD), Cammie Turell (Bowie MD) and Megan Gresham (Waterbury Center VT) collected 30 teams points for their 12^th place finish. Turell had the fastest time of 2:08:97 in the teams overall finishing time of 8:50:85.

The second day saw more individual events. Turell started with the 50-yard freestyle, finishing 8^th. Madelin Svetin (Topsham ME) set a new personal best in the 200-yard backstroke preliminaries. Her new personal best time, 2:21:64, was the 13^th fastest of the day and finished fifth in the finals. Casey Allaire (Mattapoisett MA) finished 4^th in the 1-meter dive and would go to compete, and defend her title, the following day. The 400-yard medley relay team smashed through a previous set record and earned sixth. Svetin, Turell, Gresham and Wilson beat their time by over 20 seconds.

Day three comes around and the competition was getting fierce. Turell shot out of the gates with a second-place finish in the 50-yard butterfly and as if that wasn’t impressive enough, she made a new school record as well. Allaire went to secure a third-place finish in the 1-meter dive with a total of 348.8 points. Svetin was another Panther to post a season-best which put her in the running for the finals.

The final day rolls around and regardless of a hard-fought past three days, the women’s team gave it everything they had. Allaire competed in the 3-meter dive and earned herself a top spot in the preliminaries. However, a Westfield’s diver beat her in the end, and she dropped to 2^nd place. Svetin came out hot with not only shaving time of her previous record but also winning the B finals. Several other athletes competed including Wilson and Gresham and closed out the season.

A successful season indeed, finishing 5^th in the LEC and breaking several personal and school records on the way.