Women’s swimming and diving cruises past Coast Guard, 210-87
The MIT women’s swimming and diving team, ranked No. 8 in the latest College Swimming Coaches Association of America (CSCAA) Division III poll, cruised to a 210-87 victory over the U.S. Coast Guard Academy in their first competition since early December in New England Women’s and Men’s Athletic Conference (NEWMAC) action on Saturday afternoon inside the Zesiger Sports and Fitness Center Pool.
Jessica Chen ’18 paced the Engineers’ efforts with four event wins — two individual and two relay — in the meet. Chen opened the conference competition with a great effort in the breaststroke leg of the 200-medley relay alongside Catherine Wu ’19, Margaret Guo ’16 and classmate Veronika Jedryka ’16. The quad touched the wall in 1:49.21.
Later in the meet, Chen placed first in both the 100-breast in 1:07.53 and the 200-breast in 2:28.05, before anchoring the 400-free relay with Jedryka, Guo and Katherine Yu ’16 to victory with a time of 3:37.23.
Out of 16 total events in the meet, MIT won 13 of them, which helped them to its second best point total this season with 210. This performance ranks just behind the 227 points the Cardinal and Gray put up against NEWMAC rival WPI back on Nov. 21.
Theresa Lo ’19 and Amanda Wu ’18 joined Chen with two individual victories. Lo finished first in both the 1000-free in 10:41.48 and the 500-free in 5:14.06, while Wu touched the wall quickest in the 50-free (24.92) and the 200-IM (2:13.37).
The Engineers’ points tally got boosts from individual victories from a trio of freshmen. Clare Wieland ’19 took home the 100-back in 1:02.33, Dolly Payne ’19 won the one-meter diving board with 244.27 points, and Morgan Matranga ’19 earned a hard fought victory on the three-meter board with 258.82 points.
Jedryka and Guo added individual first-place finishes on top of their relay wins as well. Guo touched the wall in 58.66 in the 100-fly, while Jedryka registered a time of 2:09.06 in the 200-back.