By Mairin O’Connor
The Owls opened their swim meet on the night of Wednesday, Dec. 2 with a large crowd in the stands and on deck.
At 5:45, before the meet started, the swim team, along with various Bryn Mawr faculty and students, participated in the 100 yard “Owls Fight For a Cure Relay Challenge.” It was a great way to open the meet.
Captain Allison Shatz ’10 agreed. “I think that despite it being a week night and the week after thanksgiving break, the team really stood up and performed,” she said. “The Owls Fight for a Cure relays helped set the tone for the meet that followed. There was a lot of enthusiasm in the air and it was great to have the support of such a large crowd.”
The team came back from Thanksgiving with only two practices before their meet, but the swimmers were ready to face both Arcadia and Cabrini. “Our main goal for this meet was to have good teamwork, which we knew would lead to success and winning,” said Coach Nikki Whitlock of the team’s strategy for the meet.
The team was able to start the meet off by winning the first race, leading them to win 11 out of the 12 races in the entire meet to follow. The 200-yard medley relay team, consisting of Kathy De La Hoz ’13, Zoe Guastella ’13, Kelsey Power ’12 and Mairin O’Connor ’13, was able to finish with a time of 2:02.37. Their victory was then followed by a win for Hannah Gilbert ’13, who swam the 1000-yard freestyle for only the second time, destroying the second place finisher by a significant twenty seconds.
Cea Weaver ’10 followed with a win in the 200-yard freestyle and later went on to win the 500-yard freestyle. The Owls were able to sweep up points in the 50-yard freestyle, with Meredith Davis, O’Connor and Sarah Sherman ’11 taking first, second and third places, respectively. Davis also later won the 100-yard freestyle with a time of 57: 52.
Guastella and De La Hoz took first place in the 200 yard IM and the 100-yard backstroke. Maura Barrett ’13, Sarah Sherman and Wanda Lee ’12 all took home third places in the 100-yard backstroke, 100-yard butterfly and the 100-yard breaststroke, respectively.
The meet came to a great close as the 200-yard freestyle relay swam to a first place victory. Although the meet was the last of the semester, the team still has great deal to anticipate before their season draws to a close next semester. In January they will be heading back to school early before they traveling to Florida to train in preparation for more success in the second semester.
“At this point in the season, we are all looking forward to the training trip, which is a great bonding experience in addition to the physical conditioning. The group always comes back from Florida as a true team,” said Shatz .
Whitlock also expressed excitement about the next part of the season, in which the faces some of its larger meets. “We are looking forward to winter break training trip to build on our solid first half of the season and set goals for our remaining dual meets, Seven Sisters Invitational and conference championships,” she said.
The Owls have much to look forward to as they head towards even more successful swims.
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Editor's note: Articles that appear in the Last Word section are works of satire.
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