WEDNESDAY'S RESULTS  I  CHAMPIONSHIP PAGE

SHENANDOAH, Texas – Kenyon College blitzed the field Wednesday night with 43 team points in the meet-opening 500-yard freestyle. The Ladies, however, barely duplicated that number the rest of the way and settled into third place in the day-one standings for the 2017 NCAA Division III Women's Swimming & Diving Championship.

Guided by defending champion Marysol Arce, Kenyon had five scoring swimmers in the 500. Arce, a sophomore, placed third with a time of 4:51.79 and Hannah Orbach-Mandel, also a sophomore, was right on her tail with a fourth-place finish in a time of 4:52.04. In the consolation heat of the same event, freshman Kendall Vanderhoof was 11th (4:56.40), Gail Anderson, another freshman, was 13th (4:59.96) and sophomore Delaney Ambrosen was 15th (4:59.20). Meg Stanley of Illinois Wesleyan University took the race title with a winning time of 4:50.76.

Kenyon had just one scoring swimmer in the next event, the 200-yard individual medley, but the Ladies maintained the top spot on the team leaderboard. Junior Julia Wilson saw to that by taking fourth place in the event with a time of 2:02.18. That was a new Kenyon record, snapping the old mark of 2:02.31 set by Tina Ertel in the 2009 season, as well as the 2:02.25 that Wilson posted earlier in the day during prelims. Her time fell just short, however, of the winning mark of 2:00.97 set by Honore Collins of New York University.

The Ladies' lead then vanished as the team slipped into a second-place tie after Emory University swimmers dominated the 50-yard freestyle. Kenyon had no finalists in the event and had to watch as the Eagles racked up 43 points to move ahead of the Ladies by 39. Williams College, which saw junior Emma Waddel win the event in 22.69, notched 20 points to square up with Kenyon at 58-58.

Williams also had one participant, Ariana Ross, in the three-meter diving competition and she placed eighth to score 11 more team points, pushing Williams past Kenyon on the leaderboard.

In the evening's final event, the 200-yard medley relay, the Ladies had a chance to regain some of that lost ground, but only slid back farther with a fourth-place finish behind first-place Emory (1:40.83) and third-place Williams (1:41.60). Kenyon's team of Summer Otazu, Julia Wilson, Hollie Hopf and Abby Wilson finished in 1:41.98.

At the end of the evening, Emory held first place with 137 points. Williams moved into second place with 101 points, Kenyon was third with 88 points, Denison University owned fourth place with 73 points and Ithaca College held down fifth with 48 points.

Day two of the four-day championship starts tomorrow with preliminary heats going off at 10 a.m. CST and finals starting at 6 p.m. CST.