Lord Jeffs swim well in dual meet at Colby; look towards NESCACs
By Karen Close, Staff Writer
The women's swimming and diving team ended their dual meet season on Saturday with yet another win, this time against Colby College, leaving the Jeffs with an impressive final record of 9-1. The Lord Jeffs defeated the White Mules 113-71.

The relay team of Liz Chiang '05, Jill Wyrick '05 and co-captains Ali Brown '02 and Sarah Malmfeldt '02 started the meet off well with a strong four second victory in the 200-yard medley relay with a time of 1:54.39.

Although Colby came back with a win in the second event, the 1000-yard freestyle, Amherst still showed their strength with Michelle McCreary '05, Sarah Dobbs '04 and Katie Massopust '05 taking second, third and fourth, respectively.

The 200-yard freestyle, however, was the high point of the meet for the Jeffs, as they managed a solid sweep with Rebecca Stein '05, Courtney Davies '05 and Morgan Bayer '03 touching within a second of each other to claim first, second and third respectively.

"The 200 free was a great race; the three of them have trained together all year and to see them swim such a close race was really exciting for us to watch," Malmfeldt said of the sweep.

The Jeffs continued to dominate throughout the meet, winning the last four events. This included another sweep in the 100-yard breaststroke, where Wyrick secured a win for the Jeffs with an impressive time of 1:10.65. She was closely followed by her fellow teammates, Malmfeldt and Hilliary Stockbridge '05, who captured second and third with times of 1:12.47 and 1:12.63, respectively.

The meet closed with the grueling 800-yard freestyle relay, where the team of Ashley Simonsen '04, Davies, Bayer and Stein touched nearly six seconds before the competition, to win with the time of 8:10.50, trouncing Colby's time of 8:16.06.

"The meet was a great confidence booster for us as we look towards NESCACs and Nationals," said Brown. "We had a lot of strong swims, which tells us that we're ready."

Next up for the Jeffs is the NESCAC Championships, which will take place the weekend of Feb. 22 in Williamstown, Mass. The team will then finish their season with the Division III Championships in March in Oxford, Ohio.

Issue 16, Submitted 2002-02-12 23:34:03