Emory & Henry Women’s Swimming Third After Day One Of The Transylvania Invitational Saturday

Emory & Henry Women’s Swimming Third After Day One Of The Transylvania Invitational Saturday

LEXINGTON, Ky. – The Emory & Henry College Women's Swimming Team sits in third place after day one of the Third Annual Transylvania Invitational. The meet, which is being held on the campus of the University of Kentucky, marks the midway point of the season for the Wasps.

With 291 points, Emory & Henry is 17 points behind second-place Rhodes College (208) and 26 out of Wittenberg University's lead (318). Removing diving from the equation, the Wasps are just one point out of second and seven points away from the lead.

Saturday saw multiple bright spots for Emory & Henry, highlighted by a clean sweep of the three relay events. In the morning session, the Wasps won the 200-yard freestyle relay with a time of 1:36.70 which was just six-tenths of a second away from a NCAA "B" Qualifying Standard. The squad was made up of junior Michaela Nolte (Hillsborough, N.C.), sophomore Marina Moore (Thomasville, N.C.), junior Jessica Richardson (Vero Beach, Fla.) and sophomore Mackenzie Lingle (Roanoke, Va.). E&H's "B" Relay finished third overall but did not score due to the scoring protocol of the meet allowing for just one scoring relay per team.

In the 800-yard freestyle relay, Lingle, senior Taylor Guardalabene (Charlotte, N.C.), sophomore Holly Roth (Albuquerque, N.M.) and freshman Claire Goodrum (Versailles, Ky.) won the race by nearly four seconds with a time of 7:58.90.

E&H completed the sweep of the Day One relays with a record-setting win in the 200-yard medley relay. Richardson, Nolte, Goodrum and Moore combined to swim a 1:47.62 for a new E&H record. The swim was also 1.02 seconds away from a NCAA "B Cut."

Highlighting the individual events was Nolte's second-place finish in the 100-yard breaststroke. Nolte set a new school and conference record in the morning's preliminaries with a time of 1:05.09 and also achieved a NCAA "B Cut." The two-time ODAC Champion came back in the finals to break the record for the second time of the day and improve her qualifying time, posting a 1:04.99.

Richardson also took runner-up honors with her swim of :53.29 in the 100-yard freestyle while Guardalabene turned in a third-place finish in the 500-yard freestyle (5:17.58).

In the 200-yard backstroke, Moore was fourth with a swim of 2:10.12 while senior Nicole Powell (Apex, N.C.) finished fourth in the 200-yard butterfly (2:15.00).

Emory & Henry will conclude competition in the Transylvania Invitational on Sunday.

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-photo courtesy of Caleb Johnston, E&H '15