BOSTON, Mass. – Junior Natalie Giraldi (Bedford, N.H.) earned a pair of first place finishes to lead the Simmons College women's swimming & diving team to a 161-73 victory over visiting Babson College this evening at the Holmes Sports Center in Boston, Mass. The Sharks improve to 5-0, while the Beavers fall to 0-7.
Simmons won nine of 13 events, including both relay races and swept the top three spots in four individual events.
Giraldi won the 50-yard freestyle with a time of 26.84 for the Sharks to nip senior teammate Sarah Price's (New York, N.Y.) mark of 27.00. Giraldi later touched the wall first in the 100-yard butterfly with a time of 1:08.44 to lead a Simmons sweep, ahead of juniors Lindsay Nichols (Kennebunk, Maine) and Abigail Gonzalez (Kennesaw, Ga.). Sophomore Laura Simpson (Perkiomenville, Pa.) contributed with 13 points with a first and second-place effort for the Sharks, while senior Miriam Swisher (Albuquerque, N.M.) posted a first-place showing to go with a third-place effort for 12 points.
First year Tirza Rentovich (Harrisburg, Pa.) led all competitors with 22 points for Babson behind a pair of first-place finishes and a second-place effort, while senior diver Paris Ekman (Fargo, N.D.) placed first on both the one and three-meter boards to register 18 points.
Simpson won the 200-yard freestyle for Simmons on a time of 2:04.59 to finish ahead of teammates Laura List (Bedford, Mass.) and Kara Smith (Eastham, Mass.) in a 1-2-3 finish for the home team. Swisher's victory came in the 100-yard backstroke, winning the race by over five and a half seconds on a time of 1:04.95.
The Sharks won the first four events of the night, led by a 1:59.12 mark in the 200-yard medley relay, posted by List, Giraldi, junior Michaela Morris (Duxbury, Mass.) and sophomore Kerry Fleming (Northampton, Mass.). Senior Emmie Lindholm (Sterling, Mass.) followed with a time of 11:31.64 to take the 1000-yard freestyle by nearly 39 seconds. Senior Julie Nguyen (Salem, Mass.) and Swisher followed to give Simmons a sweep in the event.
The Sharks owned a 62-10 lead after four events, before Rentovich broke the host school's string of successes for the Beavers. She won the 200-yard individual medley for BC on a time of 2:26.39 to win the race by more than four seconds. Ekman continued the scoring trend for Babson with a score of 251.10 to earn a win on the one-meter board, while teammate Tessa Amoroso (Rowley, Mass.) checked in with a mark of 222.60 to give the visitors the top two places in the event and help them pull to within 73-36. First year Cristina Samaniego (Avon, Conn.) was the top finisher for the home team with a career-best 179.70 points to place third.
Fleming later won the 100-yard freestyle for Simmons with a time of 56.61 to nip Rentovich by just over a second, before sophomore Cassie Vietas (Tampa, Fla.) took home the 500-yard freestyle by nearly 10 seconds for the Sharks.
Ekman and Rentovich combined for back-to-back wins again for the Beavers. Ekman tallied 271.30 points on the three-meter board to clip Amoroso's score of 269.35, while Samaniego recorded 159.00 points for Simmons. Rentovich captured her second race of the evening for Babson with a 100-yard breaststroke win on a time of 1:13.35 to win by exactly five seconds and help the Beavers cut the deficit to 146-71.
The Sharks ended the meet as they began it, with the top two times in the relay as Fleming, sophomore Charlotte Rivard (Norwood, Mass.), senior Erin Lilienthal (Niantic, Conn.) and first year Fiona Harms (Kennebunkport, Maine) combined for a time of 1:56.64 to edge Simmons' second-place entrant of Simpson, Smith, senior Michelle Jung (Lexington, Mass.) and first year Frances Humphrey (McKinney, Texas) by just 1.7 tenths of a second.
The Sharks return to action on Saturday, November 19 when they head to Biddeford, Maine to take on University of New England at 1:00 p.m., while Babson returns to the water on the same day, hosting Clark University at 1:00 p.m.