By Maegan White
Elm Staff Writer
The Shorewomen traveled to Lancaster, Pennsylvania to compete in their last regular season meet. They suffered a 77-175 loss to the Franklin and Marshall Diplomats. The Diplomats are ranked third in the conference while the Shorewomen rank sixth of eight teams.
The Shorewomen were led in points by sophomores Kylee Smith, Lilly Hartmann, Emily Iampieri and junior Emma Schultz.
Iampieri scored 13 points by earning a first-place finish in the 100 freestyle and a second-place finish in the 50-yard freestyle. The second-highest scoring Shorewoman was Smith with 13 points. She took first in the 200-yard freestyle and third in the 500-yard freestyle.
Hartmann and Schultz each placed second in two of their events, earning eight points each. Hartmann swam the 200-yard backstroke and the 200-yard individual medley. Schultz competed and placed in the 200-yard freestyle and 100-yard butterfly.
Senior Kristina Curley also secured a top place finish in one of her individual events. Her second-place finish in the 1,000 freestyle secured the team four points.
Sophomore Ayana Davis, Junior Kennedy Jones, and Senior Alex May all took third in one of their individual events – May in the 200-yard breaststroke, Davis in the 200 fly, and Jones in the 100 back.
In the 200 medley relay, the Shorewomen team composed of Hartman, Smith, Iampieri, and junior Anna Miller took third behind Franklin and Marshall’s A and B relays. The 400-yard freestyle relay made up of Smith, Schultz, Jones, and Iampieri took second. They finished only half a second behind the Diplomats relay.
The Diplomats won 12 of the 14 races against the Shorewomen. The Shorewomen put up a tough fight against the Diplomats but were unable to beat them. The Shorewomen have one of the smallest teams in the conference with only 13 people while the Diplomats had 26 competitors.
In seven of the 14 events, the Shorewomen only had one to two swimmers entered, which gave the Diplomats an opportunity to earn more points by having more swimmers in the heat. In the events where WC was able to enter three or more swimmers, the Shorewomen tended to earn more or just as many points as the Diplomats. For instance, in the 200-yard freestyle, Smith, Schultz, and freshman Lauren Paules took first, second, and fourth respectively, earning 14 points total compared to the Diplomats five points in the same event.
May said that she is immensely proud of the team’s performance this season and they are looking forward to training for the championships in the upcoming weeks.
“I’m very excited to go into this part of the season. We have been working super hard up until this point, and now we are getting into the final stretch and preparation part,” May said. “We will be working on the finishing touches or our races, such as faster turns and starts. We will also be boosting each other up to head into conferences confident.”
In mid-February the Shorewomen will head to Gettysburg College to compete in the Centennial Conference Championships. They will compete against all eight teams and work to improve their rankings in the Conference. Going into the championships, Swarthmore College and Gettysburg College are undefeated and ranked first, followed by Franklin and Marshall, Ursinus College, Dickinson College, then the Shoremen. Bryn Mawr College and McDaniel College are ranked seventh and eighth respectively.
Photo by Grace Hazlehurst
Photo Caption: Senior distance swimmer Kristina Curley swimming the 1000-yard freestyle in her final home meet.