By Candice Peak
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Virginia. March 11. NUMEROUS meet records were taken down during the Virginia Senior Swimming short-course-yard Championship at the University of Virginia Aquatic Center.
Rachel Naurath from Nova Aquatics won four individual events and took down some records along the way. Naurath broke Whitney Hedgepath's 25 year old meet record on her way to winning the 100 fly (54.82). Naurath broke another meet record in the 200 fly (1:58.38) and won the 1000 free (9:50.76) and 1650 free (16:20.92) as well. Naurath was also a member of Nova's four winning relays the 400 free relay (3:28.38), the record breaking 800 free relay (7:22.98) and 400-medley relay (3:48.71), and the 200-medley relay (1:47.26).
Fellow record breaking and teammate, Rebecca Rainer joined Naurath on the winning 200 and 400 medley relays as well as taking down some individual records of her own. Rainer broke her own meet record in the 200 breast (2:15.30), and also won the 100 breast (1:03.14), 200 IM (2:04.55), and 400 IM (4:16.84).
Anna Dobben, a freshman for the University of Virginia (UVA), impressively took down Whitney Hedgepath's 23-year-old meet record in the 50 free (23.34), out touching teammate Meredith Perdue by only .01 to win the event. Perdue also had individual success by winning the 100 free (50.50) and 200 free (1:48.47).
Teammate Jenny Lewis had two record breaking swims including the 100 back (53.70) during finals, breaking her own meet record swim from preliminaries by almost a second, and also in the 200 back (1:57.73) which broke a 17 year old meet record previously held by Kerry O'Hanlon.
The other individual winner on the women's side came from Tidewater swimmer Kasey Morris, who won the 500 free (4:50.08).
Thibauld Pierra from UVA had three individual wins including the 200 free (1:38.21), 500 free (4:23.49), and a meet record in the 1000 free (9:08.94), which was previously held by Michael Fuller of Nova. Teammate Zachary Kohl picked up multiple individual wins as well, winning the 50 free (20.92) and 100 free (45.54).
Other individual event winners for UVA included Nath Vredeveld and Douglas Eden who won the 1650 free (15:30.20) and 200 breast (2:03.13) respectively.
Joshua Friedel from the Stingrays swept the backstroke events, winning the 100 back (49.55) and 200 back (1:47.09).
Poseidon Swimming swimmers, Samuel Rairden won the 100 fly (48.87), while teammate Morgan Latimer won the 200 fly (1:49.39). Both Rairden and Latimer were members of Poseidon's winning 400-medley relay (3:26.11) to disrupt the sweep of relays for Nova.
Nova won four of the five relays, including the 200 free relay (1:25.08), 400 free relay, 800 free relay (6:51.31), and 200-medley relay (1:34.81).
Nova of Virginia Aquatics won the championship with a combined score of 1629 points, Poseidon Swimming was second with 1007.5 points, and Quest Swimming came in third with 738.5 points.