Swim & dive compete strong after break, take win

The men’s and women’s swim teams competed last Saturday in the Michigan Illinois Quad at Wheaton College while the divers competed the Friday before at Wabash College, with strong performances coming across the board. The women’s swimmers took the victory at Wheaton with a total score of 605 points, ahead of second place Wheaton at 490.5 points. The swimmers racked in eight first-place finishes among individual events and two relays. Emma Shaefer (’21) won the 200-yard backstroke and the 200 breaststroke, Hope Reynolds (’21) took first in the 200 individual medley, Allison Eppinga (’20) took first in the 100 freestyle, Abigail Brinks (’19) took first in the 1,000 freestyle and Meg Peel (’21) took first in the 500 freestyle. Several of the events had Hope swimmers sweeping the top three places.

Many of the first-place individual event swimmers contributed to the relay wins as well. Eppinga, Schaefer, Peel and Sydney Asselin (’19) won the 400 medley relay. A team of Peel, Asselin, Brinks and Erin Emmert (’20) took the victory in the 400 freestyle relay. On the diving side, Sara Plohetski (’19) took a season best 3-meter score of 239.45 points at Wabash, scoring 210.35 on the 1-meter board. The men’s swimmers finished third place at Wheaton with a score of 400.5 points. Daniel Keith (’21) took first place in the 200 backstroke and tied for first with a Kalamazoo swimmer in the 50 freestyle. Daniel Clyde (’20) took second place in the 200 freestyle, and third in the 200 breaststroke, followed by teammate Will Benner (’21) in fourth. Senior Jeff Engle took fourth in the 200 butterfly, with Nick Weigle (’22) taking fifth. On the diving side for the men, Grant Williams (’21) had two season-best performances with 292.75 points on the 3-meter board and 291.85 on the 1-meter board. Brian Simonich (’19) and Kamaron Wilcox (’22) also dove, with Simonich scoring 254.75 on the 3-meter board and 253.75 on the 1-meter board. Wilcox had a 3-meter score of 219.90 and a 1-meter score of 221.90. Both teams competed over break in St. Petersburg (FL) against Luther College, with the men’s team taking the win at 125-60 and the women’s team also victorious with a score of 137-43.

The teams hit the pool again this Saturday at Kalamazoo. Wish them luck!