Though not without valiant effort, both Elizabethtown College’s men’s and women’s swim teams lost to Catholic University on Saturday, Nov. 12.
The women’s team had a score of 65 to Catholic’s 195. Starting the meet off well, first-year Sara Lingo won the 200-yard backstroke in 2:17.46 and the 500-yard freestyle in 5:36.97. Lingo achieved personal best and season’s best times in both of these events.
According to Lingo, she likes any distance event. “I’m a big fan of the 400 and 200 IM and the 500 and 1000 free,” Lingo said. The 400 and 200 are individual medleys where she completes all four strokes herself.
Other accomplishments for the day include sophomore Erika Cole breaking into the 26 second bracket for the 50-yard free for the first time this season. She was inches short from winning by coming in 26.75 seconds to Catholic’s 26.61.
Senior Mariselle Parisi broke Etown’s fastest 200-yard breaststroke time with 2:46.56, 2.5 seconds faster than the previous time.
Parisi believes the season is going well so far. “We have a really strong team, and we are definitely growing in size, which is helping us fill the lanes easier than past years,” Parisi said. She expects her own times to keep dropping and the team to keep working hard for upcoming meets.
The last event was the 200-yard free relay, made up by Cole, Lingo, junior Megan Anderson and sophomore Maddie Lasko. They came in third with 1:49.08. The first three were less than half a second apart from each other by the end.
“From what I’ve observed, the practices and hard work that we are all putting into swimming is paying off,” Lingo said. She has confidence that “if the Etown team continues,” many people will be getting their “overall best times at the end of the season at conferences in February.”
Though the men’s team scored more than the women’s, it was not enough to win the meet. They managed 76 points while Catholic scored 185. The first event was won by the 200-yard relay team of first-years Casey Marshall and Brian Sylvestri, Alec Schneider and sophomore Guillaume Gouronc with 1:44.68.
Though it did not garner a win, Marshall earned the team’s season-best in the 1000-yard freestyle with 11:04.48. He continued to help the team with a victory in the 100-yard butterfly in 53.36. This time qualifies him as the fourth quickest in the conference this season for the event.
Another relay including Marshall, sophomores Nick Petrella and Sam Hirshberg and junior David Foery made the team’s season best in the 200-yard free relay with a 1:34.99.
Gouronc’s time of 1:05.28 in the 100-yard breaststroke was a new team-best and placed him second in the event.
Another accomplishment was Schneider’s season best in the 100-yard free with 51.13. Petrella and senior Jake Stonecipher both had season-bests in the 200-yard backstroke with 2:08.70 and 2:33.21, respectively.
The upcoming meet for both the men’s and women’s teams will be Saturday, Nov. 19 at Drew University starting at 1 p.m.
