WINTHROP, Mass. – Simmons College women's swimmer Sarah Price (New York, N.Y.) was named the Great Northeast Athletic Conference Women's Swimming & Diving Athlete of the Week for the week of January 18-24, it was announced today by the conference.
The award marks the sixth time that a Shark has been named this season. Four different competitors from Simmons have been tabbed this year. Sophomore Natalie Giraldi (Bedford, N.H.) was selected the top weekly athlete for the weeks of October 19-25 and November 2-8, while junior Miriam Swisher (Albuquerque, N.M.) received the accolade for the weeks of November 9-15 and November 16-22. Junior diver Alison Gauvin (Whitefield, Maine) garnered the honor for the week of January 4-10.
Price scored a meet-high 22 points, winning a pair of events, while adding a second place finish to help the Sharks to a 191-63 victory over Western New England University on January 23. The junior 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. A graduate of the Rudolf Steiner School, Price 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 Swisher, who was the anchor freestyler, to combine on a time of 2:03.20.
Price has been among the team's top 10 scorers this season and has registered 15 top-three finishes, including three first-place efforts. The junior has competed primarily in the freestyle events, ranging from the 50 to the 500 and has also scored in the three lengths of the breaststroke. She registered her best time of the year in the 50-yard freestyle with a mark of 26.75 in the GNAC Championship preliminaries and later placed third at the meet on December 5. Her time of 2:43.83 earned her a fifth-place showing at the GNAC Championship in the 200-yard breaststroke.
The third-year swimmer has been a mainstay for the Sharks during her career, placing among the top-three in 46 individual events, including seven first-place finishes.
The Sharks are currently 10-1 on the season to match the school-standard for victories in a campaign and won the GNAC Championship for the 12th straight year in December. Simmons returns to the water on Saturday, January 30 when the team travels to South Hadley, Mass. to take on Mount Holyoke College at 12:00 p.m.