Feb. 28, 2008
The women’s team ended the season on a high note despite a loss to DePauw in our final dual meet. Many of the swimmers posted in-season or even lifetime bests and the team finished the dual meet portion of the season with a solid 6-3 record.
Freshman Ellie Elgamal broke two school records going 57.72 in the 100 butterfly and 2:13.37 in the 200 IM.
The women had a lot of confidence coming off their impressive regular season and it showed in our first day of competition at UAA Championships.
Ellie Elgamal finished 5th overall in the 200 IM and set a school record with her prelims time of 2:10.53. Charlotte Richman followed with an impressive 50 freestyle, placing 6th overall and just missing the school record in prelims with her time of 24.92.
Our divers Monica Buckley and Carla Penicka scored some valuable points in the 1M board event placing 14th ad 15th overall.
The 400 Medley Relay Team of Katherine Leonard, Cassie, O’Neill, Ellie and Charlotte capped off a good day for the team with another school record and a 5th place finish.
Day two of the competition proved to be even better than the first with Sarah Wynn’s 6th place finish in the 400 IM leading the way. The next event, the 100 fly, proved to be one of our best events of the entire meet with Elgamal winning the UAA title, Rachel Zarnke winning the consolation final and Charlotte and Kathie Ang also scoring big points in consols.
Cassie O’Neill continued the trend of finals swims placing 5th in the 100 breast despite slipping of the blocks at the start and coming up a full body length behind the field. Freshmen Lauren Battaglia and Margot Luedke also scored in the event placing 12th and 18th, respectively.
The last event of the day, the 100 back, saw four UC swimmers scoring: Katherine Leonard (15th), Callie Brown (17th), Kathie Ang (18th), and Alicia Bushman (19th). We had a ton of best times on the day and the girls were definitely pumped up going into the final day of competition.
On the final session of competition Freshman Sarah Wynn again got our momentum going with a great swim in the 1650. She placed 8th in a school record time of 17:49.42, just off an NCAA B cut as well. Before this, Monica and Carla scored even more points in the 3M diving event finishing 10th and 14th. Callie, Kathie and Alicia scored some more points for us in the 200 backstroke while Charlotte and Sarah Laws scored in the 100 freestyle.
Cassie O’Neill finaled again, this time in the 200 breast, placing 7th and Ellie followed up her 100 fly title by winning the 200 fly in dominating fashion, beating out 2nd place by over a second an a half and breaking her own school record.
For the last event, the 400 free relay, it was only fitting that another school record went down as Ellie, Kathie, Sarah Laws and Charlotte placed 7th in a school record time of 3:44.95
Overall, it was an amazing meet for the women who ended up finishing 5th, improving on last year’s 6th place finish and equaling the best finish in team history.
A total of 10 school records were broken this season and 47 new Chicago Top-10 All-Time times were posted.
The season isn’t over just yet as Ellie Elgamal will be competing at NCAA Championships in two weeks.
This is the first time in a decade that a female UC swimmer will compete at NCAAs so it will be very exciting to get Chicago back in the national standings.
GO MAROONS! |
