February 23, 2008
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Carole Grills
(413) 585-2703

Pioneers In Sixth Place After Day One of NEWMAC Swimmming & Diving Championship

Northampton, MA: After the first day of competition of the three-day New England Women's and Men's Athletic Conference (NEWMAC) Swimming & Diving Championship being held at Wellesley College, the Pioneers are in sixth place with 89 points.

Six events were completed on Friday with Smith's best performance a second place finish by Shanti Freitas (Evanston, IL) in the one-meter diving event. The event was won by MIT's Doria Holbrook with 517.45 points while Freitas placed second with an NCAA top-10 score of 476.40.

Other events on Friday were the 200 freestyle relay, the winner was Wheaton (1:38.44) while Christine Dzialo (Belchertown, MA), Rachel Dorset (Stratford, CT), Francesca Kotey (Gainesville, FL) and Lily Seidman (Westfield, IN) finished 6th in 1:44.41. Marly Pineda (Bosque Farms, NM) placed 7th in the 500 freestyle in 5:21 with the winning time posted by Sasha Brophy of MIT in 5:06.50. Kotey finished 12th in the 50 freestyle in 25.25 while Moira Price of Springfield set a new NEWMAC record with a time of 23.69. The Pioneers had two relays finish in the top sixteen in the 400 medley relay. Lenora Walter (Santa Ynez, CA), Reyna Levine (Kalamazoo, MI), Pineda and Seidman finished 9th overall (4:18.23) and teammates Dzialo, Adrienne Klein (Shrewsbury, MA), Dorset and Kotey took 15th in 4:34.23.  The winning time for the event was Wheaton's 3:58.19.

The competition continues on Saturday with trials at 11 am and finals beginning at 6:30 pm.