SPRINGFIELD, Mass. - Junior Sarah Price (New York, N.Y.) scored 22 points, including a pair of first place finishes to lead the Simmons College women's swimming & diving team to a 191-63 victory over host Western New England University this afternoon at the Alumni Healthful Living Center Pool in Springfield, Mass. The Sharks win their seventh straight dual meet to improve to 10-1 on the season to match the school record for victories in a season, while the Golden Bears fall to 3-5.
Simmons won 12 of 14 events and swept the top three places in six individual races.
Price won both the 200-yard freestyle and 500-yard freestyle events and also finished second in the 50-yard freestyle for the Sharks. She touched the wall first in the 200 with a mark of 2:08.31, before winning the 500 by more than 10 seconds with a time of 5:52.51. The junior swam the breaststroke leg of Simmons' winning 200-yard medley relay effort, joining sophomore backstroker Lindsay Nichols (Kennebunk, Maine), sophomore butterfly stroker Michaela Morris (Duxbury, Mass.) and junior anchor and freestyler Miriam Swisher (Albuquerque, N.M.) to combine on a time of 2:03.20.
Swisher racked up a pair of first place finishes of her own, winning both backstroke events for the Sharks. The junior won the 50-yard event by more than four seconds with a time of 29.10 and won the 200 by nearly 16 seconds with a mark of 2:14.56. First year Kerry Fleming (Northampton, Mass.) also took home a pair of victories, winning the 100-yard freestyle in 56.66, before clocking in at 1:05.68 to win the 100-yard individual medley.
First year Laura Simpson (Perkiomenville, Pa.) finished ahead of the field by more than 69 seconds to win the 1650-yard freestyle in 18:32.51 for Simmons, while junior Jordan Mattheisen (Seattle, Wash.) placed first in the 50-yard breaststroke by just over a second with a mark of 35.22. First years Charlotte Rivard (Norwood, Mass.) and Jason Erichsen (Banks, Ore) also scored first place showings for the Sharks. Rivard hit the wall at 1:07.84 to win the 100-yard butterfly, while Erichsen swam to victory in the 100-yard breaststroke with a time of 1:17.10.
Simmons closed the meet with a win the 200-yard freestyle. Swisher led off the race with Mattheisen and Simpson following, before Rivard touched the wall with 1:48.75 showing on the board to win by nearly 20 seconds.
Sophomore Erika Sheinhait (Framingham, Mass.) led Western New England with a pair of event wins, capturing the 50-yard freestyle (26.07 seconds) and the 50-yard butterfly in a program record time of 28.33 seconds, to go with a runner-up performance in the 100-yard freestyle.
Sophomore Ali Johnstone (Southwick, Mass.) turned in a second place effort in the 50-yard breaststroke (36.24 seconds) for the Golden Bears, while classmate Jacquelyn Peterson (Beverly, Mass.) finished third and fourth, respectively, in the 50-yard freestyle (28.98) and the 500-yard freestyle (6:10.49).
The Sharks return to the water on Saturday, January 30 when they travel to South Hadley, Mass. to take on Mount Holyoke College at 12:00 p.m., while Western New England heads to West Hartford, Conn. on January 29 to compete against University of Saint Joseph (Conn.) at 6:00 p.m.