GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. – The No. 17 ranked Calvin women's swimming & diving opened the MIAA season on Saturday afternoon. The Knights won 12 events and downed the Comets, 206-69.
"It was a good weekend for us, I thought that we net our goals today," said head coach Dan Gelderloos. "We were trying to be thankful and celebrate eight weeks. We have had a really healthy eight weeks. We can probably rattle off 10 other things that went in our favor these eight weeks. We wanted to put our stamp on that and limit the distractions. We knew coming in, this is no offense to Olivet that the atmosphere was going to be low and we wanted to hold ourselves to it and stay in it as much as possible and I think we did for the most part. Finally, we wanted to try to give thanks towards our teammates and towards the way we prepare and towards the way we raced and put an emphasis on giving thanks."
The Maroon and Gold Opened the meet with a victory in the 200-yard medley relay. The team of sophomore Katherine Kim (Novi, Mich./Detroit Country Day), freshman Jenea Born (Goshen, Ind./Goshen), freshman Kiara Bromley (Manistee, Mich./Manistee) and senior Rachel Alexander (Holland, Mich./Holland Christian) won at 2:03.95.
Junior Daniella Sugijanto (Walnut Creek, Calif./Northgate) was the fastest swimmer in the 200-yard freestyle at 2:05.50.
In the 100-yard backstroke, sophomore Abbey Wellman (Crown Point, Ind./Crown Point) had a winning time of 1:03.72. Wellman touched the wall first in the 200-yard I.M. on Saturday at 2:23.34. She was also victories in the 200-yard backstroke, with a winning time of 2:17.87.
Freshman Hannah Chao (Farmington Hills, Mich./North Farmington) won the 100-yard breaststroke with a time of 1:10.96. Chao also won the 100-yard freestyle at 55.73.
The divers were busy on Saturday, freshman Joselyn Smith (Zeeland, Mich./West) won the 1-meter event at 237.52 and senior Sarah Bradley (Wheaton, Ill./Wheaton North) won the 3-meter event at 254.47. The diving team of freshman Stephany Morrow (Eagle Lake, Minn./Mankato East), Joselyn Smith, freshman Hannabeth Magnussen (Oakdale, Calif./Ripon Christian) and Sarah Bradley also participated in the 400-yard freestyle relay.
Junior Elysa Wolf (Austin, Texas/Regents School of Austin) joined in on the winning, with a first-place time of 2:43.95 in the 200-yard breaststroke.
Sophomore Emily Gunderson (Ann Arbor, Mich./Pioneer) clocked in a winning time of 1:01.92 in the 100-yard butterfly.
The Knights finished the day with a first-place finish in the 400-yard freestyle relay. The team of Jenea Born, senior Darbi Meyer (Granger, Ind./Mishawaka Penn), sophomore Emily Slenk (Zeeland, Mich./Holland Christian) and Emily Gunderson won at 3:55.02.
