<rleton College women’s swimming and diving team placed first in 13 events and cruised to a 197-103 dual meet victory over the College of Saint Benedict. Less than 24 hours after breaking the team record in the 1,000-yard freestyle at Gustavus Adolphus, first-year Molly Spence cruised to the victory in the 1,650-yard freestyle and eclipsed the 10-year old Thorpe Pool standard, posting a time of 18:02.73.
The Knights opened the festivities with a first-place finish in the 400-yard medley relay as the pairing of sophomore Annie Metcalf, senior Mia Zutz, and first-years Grace Cormier and Erin McDuffie pulled away from the field.
Carleton later grabbed the top three spots in the 100-yard backstroke, with sophomore Maggie Alexander the event at 1:02.18. The Knights posted another 1-2-3 finish in the subsequent event, the 100-yard breaststroke with senior Kate Alexander grabbing top honors.
Senior Kelsey Ihinger and first-year Sophie Pilhofer kept the win streak going as they touched the wall first in the 200-yard butterfly and 50-yard freestyle, respectively.
McDuffie would later grab her first individual event of the afternoon, winning the 100-yard freestyle with a time of 55.85.
Junior Kale Zicafoose added to Carleton’s point total with a six-and-a-half second triumph in the 200-yard backstroke.
Senior Lynsey Bernfeld edged Zutz for the top finish in the 200-yard breaststroke and would end up being selected as the team’s swimmer of the meet as she also placed third in the 100 breaststroke and was on the second-place finishing group of the 400 medley relay.
Junior Louise Buckler nipped first-year teammate Rose Prullage = in the 100-yard butterfly by 0.09 second, giving Carleton it’s 10th event title of the meet.
Junior Sydney Weydemeyer was the top scorer on the 3-meter diving board. She finished third on the lower board.
Cormier finished her day with top honors in the 200-yard individual medley.
The Knights concluded the meet the same way they began, with a relay crown. This time McDuffie, Buckler, Spence and Maggie Alexander held off the top quartet from Saint Benedict to win the 400-yard freestyle relay.
The night before, however, despite seven event titles, the team absorbed a 160-140 loss at Gustavus Adolphus. This was the Knights first dual meet setback against another Division III opponent since the Gusties edged Carleton by 15 points on Jan. 27, 2007.
Spence picked up the first individual title for Carleton, touching the wall first in the 1000-yard freestyle with a school-record time of 10:34.61, trimming more than 10 seconds off Maroya Spalding’s mark set in 2001.
Maggie Alexander was the lone multi-event victor, posting first-place honors in both the 100- and 200-yard freestyle races.
Zicafoose continued her strong season by winning the 100-yard backstroke in 59.2, good for a season-best time. She placed second in the 200-yard backstroke.
Kate Alexander returned to competition and took top honors in the 100-yard breaststroke with a season-best figure of 1:08.13.
Ihinger added a victory in the 200-yard butterfly, and Weydemeyer won the 3-meter diving competition.
On the men’s side, junior Eric Brenner won the 3-meter diving competition in a 182-106 loss to Saint John’s on Saturday.
First-year Erik Klontz held off a trio of Johnnies for top honors in the 50-yard freestyle. Later, classmate Mamoru Kanaza was first to the wall in the 100-yard butterfly.
Junior Andrew Mering was unable to catch the Johnnies’ Andy Happe down the stretch of the 100-yard backstroke, finishing 0.06 behind at 55.54.
First-year Adam Miller was selected as the Knights’ swimmer of the meet. He placed sixth in the 50-yard freestyle and swam both the 100-yard freestyle and the 400-yard freestyle relay.
On Friday, the men absorbed a 187-93 setback at Gustavus. Klontz won the 50-yard freestyle and swam the opening leg of the victorious 200-yard freestyle relay. He added a second-place performance in both the 100-yard freestyle and the 200-yard medley relay, where he swam the night’s fastest anchor leg.
In the winning freestyle relay, Klontz was followed by Mering, senior Alan Goodyear, and Kanazawa as the quartet posted a season-best relay time of 1:28.78.
Brenner posted season-best scores as the top finisher on the 1-meter and 3-meter diving boards.
Both teams will be back in the water tomorrow as they host the Carleton Mini-Invite at 12:00 pm.