EMORY, Va. – The Emory & Henry College Women's Swimming Team will set its sights on yet another stellar weekend at the 2015 Old Dominion Athletic Conference Championship, held at the Greensboro Aquatics Center. The three-day, 18-event meet will run from Friday morning to Sunday evening with preliminary races in the morning and finals in the evening.
Emory & Henry, for a third year in a row, will be competitive in every race, and has swimmers seeded in the top two in 15 of the 18 events. The championship format allows for 18 swimmers to compete in three individual races but with only 16 swimmers and 48 individual entries, E&H could potentially win every event and still not top league-favorite Washington and Lee University.
The Wasps are set up to return to their championship form of 2013 in the 50- and 100-yard freestyle. In the 50-yard freestyle E&H has the four fastest times in the league this year with sophomore Michaela Nolte (Hillsborough, N.C.) boasting a league-best :24.31. Junior Payton Shirey (Seaford, Del.), sophomore Jessica Richardson (Vero Beach, Fla.) and freshman Marina Moore (Thomasville, N.C.) hold the second through fourth spots. Freshman Mackenzie Lingle (Roanoke, Va.) is seeded first in the 100-free (:53.17) with a .66-second advantage over second place while Richardson is fourth.
Freshman Holly Roth (Albuquerque, N.M.) is second in the 200-yard freestyle (1:57.35) and third in the 500-yard freestyle (5:18.62). Junior Taylor Guardalabene (Charlotte, N.C.) has put up the second-fastest time over the season (5:14.85) and looks to repeat as the runner-up in the event. In the 1650-yard freestyle, Guardalabene had the top seed while Roth is third. The seeds for the 1650 are calculated using 1000-yard freestyle times during the year.
Richardson is seeded third in the 100-yard backstroke (1:00.44) while Moore and sophomore Jordan Greenburg (Cordova, Tenn.) are fifth and seventh in the event, respectively. Moore (2:07.77) and Greenburg hold the third and fourth spots in the 200-yard backstroke.
Nolte looks to repeat as the ODAC Champion in both the 100- and 200-yard breaststroke. She holds a 2.31-second edge in the 100-breast (1:05.46) and her time of 2:22.81 is more than seven seconds faster than second place in the 200-yard distance. Her times are currently ranked 19th and 24th in Division III and are both the NCAA "B" Standard.
Freshman Kelsey Jones (Roanoke, Va.) is seeded fourth in both events while sophomore Kia Hamilton (Memphis, Tenn.) has the eighth-fastest time in the 100-yard breaststroke.
Lingle has the third-fastest swim in the 100-yard butterfly (:59.41) while junior Nicole Powell is seeded eighth. Sophomore Allison Fowler (Morristown, Tenn.) is second in the 200-yard butterfly (2:11.12) while Powell is seeded fifth.
Fowler has the second-fastest swim in the 200-yard individual medley (2:13.63.69) while Lingle is seeded ninth. Seven of the top 10 places are held by W&L swimmers. Fowler is also second in the 400-yard individual medley (4:42.84) while Guardalabene and Jones occupy the fifth and sixth spots, respectively.
Emory & Henry is seeded first in four of the five relays. The Wasps posted a swim of 1:37.57 earlier in the season in the 200-yard freestyle relay, and went 3:33.34 in the 400-yard freestyle relay. Both times are currently 16th in Division III. E&H is also first in the 400-yard medley relay (3:55.78), a time that is 17th in the nation. The Wasps are also within striking distance of first in both the 800-yard freestyle and 200-yard medley relays.
For live coverage of the 2015 Old Dominion Athletic Conference Swimming Championship, visit the ODAC Championship Central hub. Preliminaries are set to start at 10:00 a.m., daily while the Finals will be at 6:30 p.m. on Friday and Saturday and at 5:30 p.m. on Sunday.
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