KINGSTON, R.I. - Junior Miriam Swisher (Albuquerque, N.M.) broke the school and meet record in the 200-yard freestyle to lead the Simmons College swimming & diving team on day two of the New England Intercollegiate Swimming & Diving Association Championships this evening at host University of Rhode Island's Tootell Aquatic Center in Kingston, R.I. The Sharks remain in third place following the night's finals.
Simmons now has 742 points and trails the leader Roger Williams University (1000) and Keene State College (918).
Swisher broke the 200-yard freestyle meet record by 18 one-hundreths of a second and buried her own school standard set in the morning by more than a second and a half with a time of 1:52.85, which was also a good enough time to qualify for the NCAA "B" cut. The former meet record of 1:53.03 was set in 1993 by Gretchen Von Oensen of Williams College. Swisher joins first year Laura Simpson (Perkiomenville, Pa.) as the only two swimmers in school history to win multiple events at the NEISDA Championships. The Sharks had five other swimmers score in the event to total a whopping 120 points for the race. First year Kerry Fleming (Northampton, Mass.) placed third with a time of 1:57.31, while junior Sarah Price (New York, N.Y.) posted a personal-record mark of 2:02.88 to place 10th. Junior Julie Nguyen (Salem, Mass.), first year Kara Smith (Eastham, Mass.) and junior Jordan Mattheisen (Seattle, Wash.) all finished within a two-second span of one another. Nguyen registered a personal-best time of 2:04.73 to finish 11th, while Smith surpassed all expectations as the number 16 seed with a time of 2:06.00 to place 12th. Mattheisen hit the wall at 2:06.44 to place 14th.
Earlier in the morning, Simpson won the 1000 by just over six seconds with a time of 10:37.96 and earned the gold in the "timed" final for the Sharks to become the first competitor in school history to win multiple events at the NEISDA Championships. Her time was just over a second shy of the meet record. Senior Alex Vutech (Woodstock, Vt.) placed 14th in the race with a personal-best time of 11:35.90.
Swisher was part of another school record later in the night when she swam the anchor leg of the winning 800-freestyle relay team for Simmons. Price set the pace, leading off the relay, followed by Fleming and Simpson, before Swisher closed out the relay to give the quartet a new school record by more than nine seconds at 7:50.17. The squad won the race by more than seven seconds. Swisher also opened the meet as part of the 200-medley relay, swimming the lead backstroke leg. Sophomore Natalie Giraldi (Bedford, N.H.) followed in the breaststroke leg, while sophomore Michaela Morris (Duxbury, Mass.) swam the butterfly leg to set up Fleming for the freestyle anchor leg. The relay team posted a time of 1:48.91 to place third.
Giraldi later had individual success of her own for the Sharks, placing fourth in the 100-yard breaststroke with a mark of 1:08.32. Morris later finished seventh in the 50-yard butterfly with a mark of 27.59, before first year Charlotte Rivard (Norwood, Mass.) turned in a personal-record time of 28.64 to finish 10th.
Junior Hannah Plourde (Westfield, Mass.) clocked in at 4:58.90 to finish sixth in the 400-yard individual medley for Simmons, while senior Rachel Chenard (Saco, Maine) placed 11th with a time of 5:08.56.
The Sharks return to action tomorrow on the final day of the NEISDA Championships. The morning preliminaries begin at 10:00 a.m.