Women rally for 5th NCAC title
Four more individual event titles and 18 top-8 finishes on Saturday resulted in Denison's fourth consecutive North Coast Athletic Conference women's swimming and diving championship. DU totaled 1,611 points in the three day meet and outdistanced second-place Kenyon College by 40 points.
Despite loading up on points in the 200 backstroke and the 100 freestyle, DU found themselves trailing Kenyon by 20 points after the 200 butterfly with two events still on the docket.
That Kenyon lead would prove to be short-lived as DU first-year Katie Collins returned after a Thursday night win the 3-meter dive with another win in the 1-meter dive. Collins posted an 11-dive score of 388.20 for the victory. Following in fourth place for the Big Red was Sterling Keiser who scored 338.60 points.
Thanks to the strong showing by Denison's pair of divers the Big Red retook the lead by 48 points. The only thing standing in the way of DU and its fifth NCAC Championship was the 400 free relay. All the BIg Red needed to do was not DQ and the title would be theirs. The foursome of Morgan Nuess, Molly Willingham, Alyssa Swanson and Marit Wangstad swam a strong race, placing second in 3:27.24 assuring another conference title would be added to the trophy case.
Over the course of the meet, Denison won 11 of 20 events and Hilary Callen set a new NCAC record in the 1650 freestyle with a time of 16:52.53. Callen's swim broke a conference record set by Denison's Tamara Carty in 2001. Following Callen was Janet Watson in fifth place (17:27.42).
After the mile it was Emily Schroeder who became the second student-athlete to become a four-time champion in the women's 200 backstroke. Schroeder posted a season-best 'A' cut time in preliminaries with a time of 2:01.88. In the final Schroeder posted a time of 2:02.15 and Lindsay Zeberlein took second in 2:02.69. Another season-best time was posted by Lucy Roth who landed a 'B' cut in 2:06.19. Sarah Yu and Victoria Masney placed eighth and 11th, respectively to round out the event for DU.
The 100 freestyle was kind to the Big Red as well after they landed six in the top-10 in the standings. Molly Willingham won her first individual event title and her second NCAC title overall in 51.81. Wangstad took second (51.88) and Nuess placed fourth in 52.25. Swanson, Lauren Wine and Tully Bradford closed out the event in seventh, ninth and 10th place, respectively.
Natalie Lugg represented Denison in the 200 breaststroke with a third-place finish and Laurel Brabson earned silver in the 200 butterfly with a time of 2:03.68. This was the event where Kenyon took their first lead since Thursday after they placed four swimmers in the top-10. Michelle Howell followed Brabson with a fifth-place showing in 2:07.54.
The win marked the fifth NCAC title for Denison overall and the program's fourth-straight . Denison's first conference title came in 2004.
