Owls run away with another Invitational title

11/22/2025 8:53:00 PM

GAMBIER, Ohio -- The Kenyon College women's swimming and diving team completed Saturday the three-day Total Performance Invitational with 2,215 team points to take the top spot within a pool of six other teams. It marked the seventh consecutive time the Owls won their home Invitational.

Carnegie Mellon University was a distant second with 1,470 points and Hope College placed third with 1,192 points. The rest of the standings saw West Chester University (1,046) in fourth place, Case Western Reserve University (795) in fifth place, SUNY Geneseo (735) in sixth place and Lindsey Wilson University (568) in seventh place.

From the start Saturday, the Owls put things out of reach for the rest of the field. Kenyon scored four of the top-five swimmers in the 1,650-yard freestyle and, when the event was complete, the Purple and White advantage increased from 507 points to 645 points. Leading the way in the distance event was senior Molly Haag, who claimed first place with a time of 16:42.63, the best in NCAA Division III to this point in the season. Sophomore Nora Lee Brown followed with a third-place time of 16:54.69 and junior Sofia Giordano was fourth in 17:20.65. All three cleared the NCAA 'B' cut, with first-year Nina Schuerer, who placed fifth, just missing out at 17:27.01.

In the next event, the 200-yard backstroke, Kenyon got two more top-five finishes from senior Gwen Eisenbeis and first-year Kate Dunagan. Eisenbeis placed third in 2:01.17 and Dunagan was fourth in 2:01.90. Both those times also cleared the NCAA 'B' cut.

Two events later, Kelsey Van Eldik, a sophomore, gave the Owls their second event win of the night, as she was fastest in the 200-yard breaststroke. Her time of 2:14.52 was a personal best, an NCAA 'B' cut time, and currently the fastest time in NCAA Division III.

Prior to Van Eldik's win, senior Lisa Torrecillas-Jouault took third place in the 100-yard freestyle. She clocked in at 50.80, another 'B' cut, just after posting a personal-best 50.52 in prelims.

Kenyon then finished off the slate of individual events with one more win. This time it came from junior Amelia Stevenson, who touched first in the 200-yard butterfly. Her NCAA 'B' cut time of 2:02.36 went down as the second fastest in NCAA Division III.

The Invitational then concluded with the 400-yard freestyle relay and the Owls went out with a bang. Torrecillas-Jouault and Haag joined Afsana Rawlins and Kate Bogan to complete the race in 3:21.73, which was a new meet and pool record. The previous meet and pool records were 3:23.42 set by a Kenyon quartet in the 2018-19 season. It also was the best time in NCAA Division III so far this season.

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