In one of Division III swimming and diving’s strongest rivalries (the two schools train less than a half mile apart), each school went home with a victory this weekend. Swimming at Claremont-Mudd-Scripps on Friday night and Saturday morning, the host Athena women left with a victory, while the visiting Pomona-Pitzer men won.
Women
The 12th ranked CMS women outscored the number 14 Pomona-Pitzer women 195 to 158. The Athena freshmen made a huge impact this weekend, winning a number of events.
Pomona-Pitzer went one-two in the opening 400 Medley relay with Sarah Jin, Alexandra Gill, Madison Kauahi, and Hannah Zurmuhl leading the way in 3:51.60. The B relay actually outsplit the A on the first two legs with senior Angela Ling touching in 56.83 on the backstroke and freshman Alexandra Werner posting a 1:04.54 breaststroke. Individually, Ling led a Sagehen sweep of the 100 back with a 56.68.
CMS got a huge win in the 50 freestyle from junior Jocelyn Crawford with a 23.29. CMS took the 200 freestyle relay. The opened Saturday with a touchout in the 200 medley relay, 1:44.87 to 1:44.95.
Athena freshmen Augusta Lewis and Natalie Larsen went one-two in both IMs (2:06.29, 2:10.58 and 4:31.17, 4:36.17). Larsen added a win in the 200 back (2:06.38). Lewis added a 200 breaststroke (2:20.80) victory.
Another CMS freshman Leila El Masri led a CMS sweep of the 200 freestyle with her 1:54.94. The team’s freshmen continued to shine, taking one-two in the 100 breaststroke led by Gill in 1:04.77. Her classmate Ava Sealander won the 100 (56.87) and 200 (2:08.11) fly.
Pomona-Pitzer’s Madison Kauahi (52.24) and teammate Zurmuhl (52.35) topped the 100 free.
CMS sophomore Mia Syme went under 18 minutes in the 1650, posting a 17:43.23.
Pomona-Pitzer ended the meet with one last victory, putting together a 3:30.63 400 freestyle relay with Zurmuhl, Allison Liu, Kate Denend, and Kauahi.
Men
The tenth ranked Pomona-Pitzer men beat the number 12 CMS team 203.5 to 149.5.
The Sagehens led from the get-go, winning the 400 medley relay in 3:21.58 with Nikhil Kundu, Lukas Menkhoff, Ryan Drover, and Will Abele. In the 200 medley relay the team traded out Abele for Nick Borowsky and won in 1:31.34.
Pomona-Pitzer freshman Paddy Baylis topped the 500 in 4:35.51 and the 1650 in 15:56.77. His classmate Jason Fu posted a 1:52.79 to win the 200 IM, in an event where the top nine (plus three exhibition swimmers) were all under two minutes. Fu also won the 400 IM, finishing in 4:00.05. Outsplitting Fu by seven seconds on the breaststroke leg, CMS’ Henry Limm was just behind in 4:00.48.
The Sagehens’ leading sprinter, sophomore Menkhoff edged CMS’ Andreas Roeseler 20.71 to 20.98 for the 50 freestyle. Roseler was just edged in the 200 freestyle, falling to Pomona’s Abele as the two touced in 1:42.06 and 1:42.17.
Without Menkhoff on the 200 freestyle relay, CMS came out ahead as Danile Hayon, Dave Makhervaks, Marco Conati, and Roeseler touched in 1:24.01. Makhervaks won the 100 back in 51.22.
Menkhoff did what he does best, dominating the 100 breaststroke with a 55.15. He also fired off a 44.70 to win the 100 freestyle. His teammate Drover turned in a 48.65 for the 100 fly victory. Their freshman teammate Jason Lu posted a 1:50.85 for 200 backstroke gold.
CMS took first through fourth in the 200 breaststroke led by Aaron Lutzker in 2:03.19. The team picked up another victory with freshman Matthew Waddell touching in 1:52.13.
The last race of the meet was down to the wire as Pomona-Pitzer’s Menkhoff, Abele, Lu, and Drover combined for a 3:04.26 400 freestyle relay, just ahead of CMS’ Roeseler, Christian Simon, Hayon, and Conati in 3:04.97.
Full results.
A full recap of this weekend’s Division III action will be available later.
.jpg "NCAA Division III Coverage - logo"){kind=logo}
Congratulations
Awesome to see the Claremont Consortium on the rise nationwide swimming wise. Also kudos to Pomona Pitzer on achieving such stellar results over the past 18 months despite having such restrictive admission guidelines (being the 6th most selective college in the country) affecting recruitment.
Awesome to see the Claremont Consortium on the rise nationwide swimming wise. Also kudos to Pomona Pitzer on achieving such stellar results over the past 18 months despite having such restrictive admission guidelines (being the 6th most selective college in the country) affecting recruitment.