By Maegan White
Elm Staff Writer
The Shorewomen’s swim team placed third out of eight teams at the Yellow Jacket Mid-Season Invitational hosted by Randolph-Macon College in Richmond Va.
The Yellow Jacket Invitational is a pivotal meet for the team as they compete against other Division III schools. The meet marks the midway point of the season and is an indicator of the teams progress thus far in the season and sets the expectations for the remainder of the season. The meet took place over two days and three sessions.
The Shorewomen were led in points by sophomore Emily Iampieri. She placed first in the 100 yard freestyle and second in the 50 yard and 200 yard freestyles. All three of her races from this meet place her in the all-time top 10 times in WC program history. She is now ranked fourth in the 100 free and seventh in the 50 and 200 free.
Sophomore Lilly Hartmann also performed well at the meet, finishing in the top five in all three of her events. Hartmann finished third in the 200 yard backstroke, fifth in the 200 yard individual medley (IM), and fourth in the 400 yard IM. Hartmann now has the tenth fastest time for the 400 IM in program history.
Senior Alex May finished in fifth place behind Hartmann in the 400 yard IM.
The 500 yard freestyle featured three Shorewomen as the top five finishers. Freshman Lauren Paules took second in the event. Senior Kristina Curley and junior Emma Schultz finished in third and fifth, respectively, in the same event.
Sophomore Ayana Davis, Kylee Smith, and Anna Miller all placed in the top five in one of their events. Davis finished fourth in the 200 yard butterfly and secured a ninth all-time top time. Miller tied for fifth in the 50 yard freestyle.
Smith secured a fifth place finish in her 200 yard butterfly and now holds the fifth all-time top time. Smith also led the 800 freestyle relay and became the eighth fastest all-time program swimmer in the 200 yard freestyle.
The Shorewomen also took first in the 400 yard freestyle relay and the 800 yard freestyle relay. The 400 relay was composed of Iampieri, Schultz, Smith, and junior Kennedy Jones. The 800 yard relay was composed of Smith, Schultz, Paules, and Iampieri.
According to Paules, the team has significantly less women this year than last year, giving them less opportunities to score. The Shorewomen took first at the invitational last year. Despite the lower finish this year, Paules explained the team is proud of their finish with only 13 women on the team this season.
“We had many season-best times as well as all-time best times. We really proved ourselves at the mid-season meet and it is something to be extremely proud of,” Paules said. “All of the women are already hitting times that they did at conferences last year, which will set us up for even bigger time drops at conferences this year.”
The Shorewomen have truly learned to live with adversity following their many losses prior to the season.
“It’s challenging coming back to this mid-season meet with half of the team we used too, but all in all I think that this year we tried even harder,” Miller said.
The Shorewomen will not compete again until Jan. 21 when they race against Ursinus College in their final home meet.
Miller said that the Shorewomen are now setting their sights on the Centennial Conference Championships next semester, taking place on Feb. 16-19.
“I would say that our goals right now are focusing on [the Conference Championships]. It’s our biggest and most challenging meet of the season,” said Miller. “This meet showed us what we are capable of. We definitely still have work to do, but our progress so far has not gone unnoticed, that’s for sure.
Photo courtesy of Justin Fitzpatrick
Photo Caption: Junior Kenley Hewitt (finishing), junior Emma Schultz (diving), senior Kristina Curley, and freshman Lauren Paules racing in a 4 x 100 yard freestyle relay.