In the Patriot Invitational, its first invitational meet of the season, the men's and women's swimming and diving teams had successful outings. The women took first place, beating teams like Yale and host George Mason, and the men's team took second, finishing less than 40 points behind Yale.
"We've been working really hard, so it's really good to see the results this weekend," Nora Stupp said.
Standouts for the women's team included both 400-yard freestyle relay teams, taking first and third. Individually, Jackie Rodriguez won the 200-yard breaststroke, the event in which she set a meet record last year, swimming 2:19.52 and finishing three seconds ahead of the rest of the competition. Julia Lewis, Alison Sundberg, Stupp and Anna Rogers swept the second- to fifth-place finishes in the 100-yard freestyle. North Carolina-Wilmington's Apryl Kerstetter out-touched Lewis to win the race by a fraction of a second.
"I think [the 100-yard freestyle race] really made our team realize our potential," Sundberg said. "We weren't expecting to do that well and gave us confidence going into the [400-yard freestyle] relays, which we also won. We weren't really expecting that either."
On the men's side, Kevin Arthofer set a meet record in the 200-yard breaststroke with a time of 2:03.80. Ryan Packer, John Humphrey and Billy Pearce all had strong meets, as well. The men's "A" 400-yard freesyle relay team, which includes Packer, Humphrey, Pearce and David Peck, was disqualified from the race, taking away valuable points away from the team.
"It was a pretty important meet," Jay Ashtenfelter said. "I guess it was the focus of the first half [of our season]. After this, we pretty much get ready for Christmas training and from then on out focus on the ACCs."
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