Women's Championship: Day 2 Recap
Minneapolis – Calvin’s Becky Weima, Amherst’s Brittany Sasser and Lindsay Payne of Williams all set individual records and defending champion Emory University took over the lead in the team race on the second day of the three-day NCAA Division III Women’s Swimming & Diving Championships.
Payne easily won the 100-yard breaststroke for the fourth time in her career, becoming only the fifth four-time champion in Division III history. She clocked a preliminary time of 1:01.13, breaking her own NCAA Championships record, set last year, by more than a full second.
Calvin’s Weima broke the 200-yard freestyle mark, previously held by Carleton’s Marie Marsman from 2003, by 0.07 seconds, finishing in 1:49.02. Sasser took down the 100-yard backstroke mark previously held by Kenyon’s Beth Galloway in 2004, going 55.20.
Emory and Kenyon battled it out in the team race all evening before the Ladies were disqualified in the final event, the 800-yard freestyle relay, negating a second-place finish and allowing Emory to take second in the relay. The Eagles have 311 points to the Ladies’ 274. Williams is third at 191 points and Washington University is fourth with 174 points. Amherst rounds out the top five with 164 points.
Kenyon started the evening in fine fashion, scoring an easy win in the 200-yard medley relay, but Emory grabbed second in the event. The Eagles tallied a second- and third-place finish in the 400 individual medley and the 100 backstroke and seventh in both the 100 breaststroke and 200 freestyle.
If Emory could repeat as team champions it would be the first school do so besides Kenyon since Williams won the first two championships in 1982 and 1983.
Whitworth sophomore Samantha Kephart won the 100-yard butterfly in 55.45, making her the first Pirate student-athlete to win a Division III swimming or diving title. Washington & Jefferson'sKaitlyn Orstein successfully defended her 400-yard individual medley title in 4:24.51.
Action concludes at the University of Minnesota’s Aquatic Center on Saturday, with preliminaries starting at 11:30 a.m. CST and finals getting underway at 6:30 p.m.
