The Kenyon Ladies racked up a record 1,957.5 points and won
the 2016 NCAC Swimming and Diving Championship. RESULTSGRANVILLE, Ohio -- The Kenyon College Ladies collected four more event titles Saturday en route to winning their first North Coast Athletic Conference Swimming and Diving Championship since the 2008 season. The Ladies snapped the seven-year reign of Denison University while collecting their 24th championship in the 32-year history of the NCAC.
The Kenyon women ended the three-day meet at Denison's Trumbull Aquatics Center with an NCAC-record total of 1,957.5 team points. The Ladies won 11 of the 20 events contested and set four NCAC marks along the way. Denison was second with 1,787.5 points. DePauw University was third with 1,141.5 points and rounding out the top five in the nine-team field were The College of Wooster with 1,034 points and Oberlin College with 851 points.
Saturday's session opened with the 1,650-yard freestyle and Kenyon freshman
Marysol Arce would have broken the NCAC record in the event had it not been for DePauw University junior Angela Newlon. Arce wound up in second place with a time of 16:42.73, which topped the old NCAC mark of 16:43.71, however, Newlon torched both of those marks with a winning time of 16:29.59. At the end of the meet, Newlon was named the NCAC Swimmer of the Year and Arce was voted the NCAC Newcomer of the Year. Newlon also edge Arce in the 500-yard freestyle two nights ago.
Despite missing out on the 1,650 win, the Ladies more than made up for it in the next event, the 200-yard backstroke. Led by freshman
Delaney Ambrosen, the Kenyon women out-pointed Denison 91-55 in the event and opened up a 154-point cushion in the team standings. Ambrosen claimed backstroke gold with a season-best and NCAA 'B' cut time of 2:02.57. Another Kenyon freshman,
Caitlin Foley, was third with a time of 2:05.15, while
Abby Chopp, also a freshman, claimed seventh place by finishing in 2:07.41.
Senior
Hannah Lobb, who won the 50-yard freestyle for Kenyon two nights ago, continued her dominance in the sprints by taking the 100-yard freestyle title in 50.63. Following her,
Jenner McLeod tied for fourth place (51.39),
Haley Townsend placed sixth (51.76),
Abby Wilson was seventh (51.95) and
Hannah Orbach-Mandel was eighth (51.96), giving Kenyon a whopping total of 138.5 points in the event.
If the overall team title wasn't secured by then, the Ladies certainly nailed things down in the 200-yard breaststroke. Sophomore
Julia Wilson won the event in record-setting time. She clocked in at 2:14.90 to set both the NCAC and pool records. She narrowly missed out on the Kenyon record of 2:14.71 set by Alisa Vereshchagin in 2009. In the same event, Kenyon also received a fourth place from
Katie Kaestner (2:19.37), a sixth place from
Ellie Crawford (2:22.40) and a seventh place from
Laura Duncan (2:24.11).
Attention then turned to the diving well, where senior
Maria Zarka once again overpowered the field. After winning the one-meter competition Thursday with an NCAC-record score, Zarka finished the sweep with an NCAC-record score of 493.25 on the three-meter board. It was her third straight-season completing the sweep and she was named the NCAC Diver of the Year for the third straight season. Kenyon diving coach,
Andy Scott, was named NCAC Diving Coach of the Year for the second straight season and
Jess Book was named the NCAC Swimming Coach of the Year for the second time in the past three years.
Prior to the distribution of those awards, Kenyon closed out the championship with a second-place showing in the 400-yard freestyle relay. Lobb and Townsend paired up with McLeod and
Abby Wilson to record a time of 3:24.56.
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