BARBOURVILLE, Ky. – The Emory & Henry College Women's Swimming Team continued its momentum from Friday, finishing first out of eight teams at the Union College Winter Invitational. The Wasps won two events and broke a pair of school records on the final day of the meet.
The Wasps got things started with a first-place finish in the 200-yard medley relay. Freshman Marina Moore (Thomasville, N.C.), sophomore Michaela Nolte (Hillsborough, N.C.), sophomore Jessica Richardson (Vero Beach, Fla.) and freshman Mackenzie Lingle (Roanoke, Va.) turned in a time of 1:49.89, winning the race by five one-hundredths of a second.
E&H placed four in the top seven of the 400-yard individual medley, led by sophomore Allison Fowler (Morristown, Tenn.), who finished second in 4:42.84. Freshman Kelsey Jones (Roanoke, Va.) was fourth (4:49.13) while juniors Taylor Guardalabene (Charlotte, N.C.) and Nicole Powell (Apex, N.C.) came in fifth (4:51.45) and seventh (4:58.03), respectively.
The Wasps repeated the performance in the 50-yard freestyle with a quartet of swimmers in the top seven. Nolte was the runner-up with a time of :24.31 while junior Payton Shirey (Seaford, Del.) was close behind, finishing fourth in :24.46. Richardson and Lingle came in sixth and seventh, respectively, touching the wall at nearly the same instant (:25.06 and :25.07).
In the 100-yard backstroke, Moore led the Wasps with a time of 1:00.70 as they claimed the third, fourth and fifth spots. Richardson swam a 1:01.13 while sophomore Jordan Greenburg (Cordova, Tenn.) clocked a 1:01.70.
Freshman Holly Roth (Albuquerque, N.M.) finished second in the 200-yard freestyle, swimming a 1:57.35. Both her finals time and prelim time of 1:57.44 would have been good enough for a school record coming into the weekend, but Nolte set a new E&H best on the leadoff leg of the 800-yard freestyle relay Friday.
Nolte continued her dominance in the breaststroke as she posted a time of 2:23.13, just .32 seconds off of her ODAC record, to win the event. Jones was fourth with a swim of 2:31.10 while freshman Brianna Chessock (Winston-Salem, N.C.) came in seventh (2:45.73).
In the 100-yard butterfly, Lingle broke the Emory & Henry record with a swim of :59.55 in the morning's preliminaries. She bested her record with a swim of :59.41 in the finals to finish third. Powell took eighth with a time of 1:02.13.
Guardalabene was third in the 1,650-yard freestyle as she swam a 18:25.81 while sophomore Lauren Blakey (Davidson, N.C.) in 21:59.33.
The final event of the meet was the 400-yard freestyle relay. Nolte, Fowler, Richardson and Lingle turned in a second-place finish as they swam a 3:33.84.
The Wasps finished the meet with a total score of 265, beating the University of the Cumblerlands by 31 points (234). Union was third, scoring 156 points, while West Virginia University Tech finished fourth (84).
Emory & Henry will next compete on Friday, January 16, 2015 when it faces off against Carson-Newman University and King University in a double-dual meet at the Kingsport Aquatic Center.
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-photo courtesy of Caleb Johnston, E&H '15