ANNAPOLIS, Md. - The Simmons College women's swimming & diving team saw three individual school records and a pair of relay standards fall on the second day of the Eastern College Athletic Conference Open Championships in Annapolis, Md. at the United States Naval Academy's Lejeune Hall.
The Sharks are in eighth place overall with 119 points, behind University of Maryland-Baltimore County and ahead of Saint Francis College (Pa.). Navy has tallied 452 points to top all teams in the meet.
Simmons 200-yard medley relay squad posted a time of 1:48.30 to place sixth in the finals. The quartet of senior Miriam Swisher (Albuquerque, N.M.), juniors Natalie Giraldi (Bedford, N.H.) and Michaela Morris (Duxbury, Mass.) and sophomore Kerry Fleming (Northampton, Mass.) combined to record a school-record effort of 1:47.87 to eclipse the former mark by two tenths of a second. Swisher was out-touched by three one-hundreths of a second in the 200-yard freestyle preliminaries by a Navy swimmer to qualify for the finals, but came back in the evening competition to finish first in the consolation finals. The senior ultimately finished ninth overall with a time of 1:52.17 to shatter her own school mark by almost seven-tenths of a second.
The Sharks closed out the night by finishing seventh in the 800-yard freestyle relay finals behind a school-record time of 7:48.35, turned in by sophomore Laura Simpson (Perkiomenville, Pa.), senior Sarah Price (New York, N.Y.), Fleming and Swisher. Simmons erased the former mark by more than two seconds.
Giraldi and Morris each established new school standards in the 100-yard breaststroke and 100-yard butterfly, respectively, in the morning's preliminaries. Giraldi turned in a time of 1:05.83 to place to shave off nearly four-tenths of a second off her own school-record mark set just two weeks ago. She came back for the consolation finals and placed 12th overall with a time of 1:06.13. Morris became the first swimmer in school annals to break the one-minute mark at 59.95 to place 27th overall.
The Sharks return to action tomorrow at Lejeune for Day Three of the ECAC Open Championships.