BOSTON, Mass. – First year Kerry Fleming (Northampton, Mass.) and junior Miriam Swisher (Albuquerque, N.M.) each won three events to lead the Simmons College women's swimming & diving team to a 212-68 victory this afternoon at the Holmes Sports Center Natatorium in Boston, Mass. The Sharks improve to 4-1 on the season, while the Nor'Easters fall to 3-2.
Simmons swept three individual events with first, second and third-place efforts. Fleming and Swisher began the meet by helping the Sharks' 400-yard medley relay squad to a first-place showing with a time of 4:11.31. Swisher opened the relay, while Fleming closed it out.
Fleming dominated the 200-yard freestyle with a mark of 2:00.86 to win by nearly eight seconds and later won the 100-yard backstroke by more than four seconds with a time of 1:04.02. The rookie capped the meet by winning the final individual event of the afternoon, hitting the wall at 1:04.54 in the 100-yard individual medley.
Swisher won the 50-yard backstroke by nearly two seconds on a time of 30.49, before earning a victory in the 50-yard freestyle by just five one-hundreths of a second at 25.32 to edge out UNE junior Lindsey Thomsen, who clocked a time of 25.37. Swisher won her third event of the day in the 100-yard freestyle by an impressive 4.23 seconds with a time of 54.58.
First year Laura Simpson (Perkiomenville, Pa.) also scored in three different events, totaling 21 points for the Sharks, winning the 1650 and 500-yard freestyle races, while placing third in the 50-yard freestyle. She cruised to victory in the 1650 with a time of 18:41.13 to win by just over 51 seconds and later added the 500 with a mark of 5:30.58 to win by more than 14 seconds. Simpson finished third in the 50-free behind Swisher and Thomsen with a time of 27.65. Sophomore Natalie Giraldi (Bedford, N.H.) and junior diver Alison Gauvin (Whitefield, Maine) each won both events they entered for Simmons. Giraldi owned the breaststroke events with a triumph in the 50-yard race on a time of 33.21 to win by more than two seconds and the 100-yard event on a mark of 1:11.89 for a five and a half second margin. She also joined junior Sarah Price (New York, N.Y.), first year Charlotte Rivard (Norwood, Mass.) and Simpson to earn a victory in the 200-yard freestyle relay with a time of 1:48.25. Gauvin placed first on the one-meter board with a score of 141.95 and added a victory in the three-meter board with a career-best score of 172.10.
Thomsen led the Nor'Easters with 17 points by winning the 50-yard butterfly with a time of 28.23 in addition to a second-place effort in the 100-IM, clocking in at 1:05.40. Sophomore Emily Chamberlain also picked up a pair of second-place finishes for UNE, hitting the wall at 19:32.53 in the 1650-freestyle, in addition to turning in a time of 5:44.99 in the 500-freestyle. She added a fourth-place finish in the 50-freestyle with a time of 28.62 to give her 10 points on the day. Sophomore Kayla Burgess (Kingston, Mass.) posted a second-place finish in the 100-yard butterfly on a time of 1:03.94, behind Simmons sophomore Michaela Morris (Duxbury, Mass.), who won the event in 1:02.35. Morris also placed second in the 50-butterfly with a time of 28.44 and finished third in the 100-IM at 1:07.50 to rack up 16 points on the day. Junior Jordan Mattheisen (Seattle, Wash.) was the Sharks' seventh competitor to register double-digits on the day with three second-place finishes for 12 points. She clocked in at 2:08.69 in the 200-freestyle, 35.75 in the 50-breaststroke and 58.81 in the 100-freestyle.
Simmons returns to action on Tuesday, December 1 when it travels to Babson Park, Mass. to take on Babson College at 6:00 p.m., while the Nor'Easters head to New London, N.H. on December 5 to compete in the Colby Sawyer Invitational at 12:00 p.m.
