Almost a year to the day after suffering a one-point loss to William & Mary, the women's swim team defeated the Tribe 142-99 Saturday in Williamsburg, Va.
With the win, Duke raised its record to 4-5 and eclipsed last year's win total. Two winnable meets remain on the Blue Devils' schedule, giving them a chance to post their most victories since 1993-94 and finish the season over .500.
"If we [beat Davidson and Georgia Tech], we're going to have a winning record," said sophomore diver Kristy Guenther. "Coach [Bob Thompson] was talking about how that's pretty amazing for a non-scholarship team."
After the narrow loss last year, the Duke swimmers thought they might be in for another nail-biter. This time around, though, the meet was decided well before the final event.
"We were expecting a close meet," Guenther said. "Looking at their times and their scores in diving, we knew we needed to place in the top three as much as possible. We were pretty good about that."
For the Blue Devil men, however, this season's results against the Tribe were not much different from last January's, when they were defeated by a 137-100 margin. Duke lost 135-96 Saturday to fall to 1-8 on the season.
The women were once again led by Amy Armond, who posted victories in three events for the Blue Devils. The senior captured the 1000-yard freestyle in 10:34.50, the 200-yard individual medley in 2:01.08 and the 500-yard freestyle in 5:06.04.
Duke won five other individual events, including Guenther's victory in the three-meter diving competition. The Blue Devils also captured the 400-yard medley relay.
Guenther said she and her teammates weren't too surprised by Duke's improvement over last year.
"With our recruits coming in, we knew we had a really good freshman class," she said. "A lot of people also did a great job training over the summer-they were more serious about it. Myself, I was in the pool every day over the summer."
For the men, senior Chris Wise was the only winner, taking the 1000-yard freestyle with a time of 9:33.83.
The Blue Devils return to the pool Saturday when they host Davidson in the Duke Aquatic Center at noon.
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