Friday, Feb. 16 through Sunday, Feb. 18, Elizabethtown College’s men’s and women’s swim teams competed in the Landmark Conference Swimming and Diving Championships in Boyds, Maryland at the Germantown Indoor Swim Center. Susquehanna University defended their place at the top of the conference for the eighth year in a row.
Etown finished seventh out of eight teams, led by sophomore Sara Lingo, who finished first in the 400-yard IM. Lingo finished in 4:43.77, setting a new school record and becoming the first swimmer on Etown’s women’s swim team to win a gold medal at the Landmark Championships. The last Etown swimmer to win gold was Gretchen Geiger in the MAC Conference nine years ago in the 400-yard IM and the 200-yard breaststroke.
Lingo also medaled in the 500-yard freestyle, finishing with a time of 5:23.05, earning her a fifth-place finish for the Jays and a new personal best time. She went into the meet ranked 15th, but took over 13 seconds off her time in prelim, earning her the eighth spot in the final. Lingo’s final event of the weekend was the 1650-yard freestyle, in which she finished in 18:34.49, earning her a sixth-place finish.
“It’s still surreal that I actually won the 400 IM but I’m so happy because I have worked so hard this season and its awesome to see the hard work pay off,” Lingo said. “The rest of the team all did super well and we had a ton of best times and I couldn’t be more proud of my swim family and I wouldn’t be here without all of them.”
Junior Erika Cole qualified for the “B” final in the 50-yard freestyle Friday, earning 12th place with a time of 25.50. Saturday, senior Dru Schneider qualified for the consolation final in the 100-yard breaststroke. Schneider finished 14th with a time of 1:12.69, her best time since her first-year season. Etown’s 200-yard medley and 800-yard freestyle relay teams were also successful, both finishing in seventh place with season-best times.
Sunday, Schneider finished fifth in the consolation final of the 200-yard breaststroke. Junior Maddie Lasko also made the consolation final for the 200-yard breaststroke, finishing in 16th place with a personal best time of 2:45.65. Sophomore Sadie Hawkins and first-year Julia Argentati also made the consolation finals for the 200-yard butterfly and the 200-yard backstroke, respectively. Hawkins finished in 15th place with a time of 2:29.82, and Argentati beat her seed time by almost eleven seconds, coming in 16th place with a time of 2:22.47.
The men’s team finished fifth place overall, the team’s best finish since joining the Landmark Conference four years ago. Friday, first-year Alex Pecher, sophomores Casey Marshall and Alec Schneider and senior David Foery broke a 21-year-old school record in the 200-yard freestyle relay. Later that night, Marshall and junior Guillaume Gouronc advanced to the finals of the 200-yard IM. Marshall earned 14th place with a personal best time of 2:03.05. Gouronc finished in 2:06.16, earning him 16th place.
Pecher earned 11th place in the 50-yard freestyle with a time of 22.27. Schneider also made the final for the 50-yard freestyle where he earned a season-best time of 22.45 to take 15th place overall. The two finalists in the 50-yard freestyle joined Foery and junior Ben Spangler to earn fifth in the 400-yard medley relay, taking 11 seconds off their previous season-best time.
Saturday, Marshall broke his own program record in the 100-yard butterfly, finishing in seventh place with a time of 52.31. He also beat his school record in the 100-yard breaststroke, finishing in seventh place with a time of 52.31. Marshall also led off the 800-yard freestyle relay. Marshall, Pecher, Foery and first-year Austin Dolaway finished the 800-yard race in 7:17.21, breaking the previous record set in 2001 by almost five seconds.
By the end of the night, 11 Blue Jays advanced to the consolation finals, four of which were in the 100-yard breaststroke.
In the final day of competition, the men’s team had four individual top-10 finishes, enough to secure the Blue Jays fifth place overall, their best finish since they took fifth-place in the MAC Conference in 2008.
