Swimming & Diving Falls at Merrimack, 139-122, in Season Opener

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Junior Aine Scholand (Albuquerque, N.M.) won the 1650-yard freestyle and helped the Simmons University 800-yard freestyle relay team to a third-place finish with a school-record time on Day One of the MIT Swimming & Diving Winter Invitational at the Al '51 and Barrie Zesiger Sports and Fitness Center Pool in Cambridge, Mass. The Sharks scored 106 points to place fourth, just one point behind Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Tufts University tallied 256 points to lead the meet after the opening day, while Massachusetts Institute of Technology racked up 233 points to stand second overall.
Posted: Oct 19, 2019

ANDOVER, Mass. -- Senior Aine Scholand (Albuquerque, N.M.) and first year Meg Driscoll (Haverhill, Mass.) each won a pair of events to lead the Simmons University women's swimming & diving team in a 139-122 loss to host Merrimack College this afternoon at the Andover YMCA in Andover, Mass. The Sharks fall to 0-1 in their season opener, while the Warriors improve to 1-2.

Merrimack never trailed during the meet, which did not feature any diving events.

Scholand won both distance freestyle events for Simmons, taking the 1000-yard freestyle by 19 seconds with a time of 11:12.23, before touching the wall first in the 500-yard freestyle as well with a mark of 5:29.52 to win by under eight seconds. Driscoll won both breaststroke events, finishing first in the 100-yard race with a time of 1:14.87 in her first individual collegiate race and topping the field in the 200-yard competition with a time of 2:41.11. 

Senior Laura List (Bedford, Mass.) sprinted to a first-place effort in the 50-yard freestyle with a time of 26.21 to help the Sharks close to within 67-63 after seven events, but it was as close as they would get for the rest of the meet. List also added a third-place showing in the 100-yard backstroke with a time of 1:06.21.

Simmons capped the meet by winning the 200-yard freestyle relay by more than three seconds with a time of 1:45.53 behind Scholand's lead leg, followed by List, sophomore Lauren Howard (Abington, Mass.) and first year Katelyn Quinlan (Haverhill, Mass.).  

Junior Olivia Walz (Natick, Mass.) registered a pair of second-place finishes in the 200-yard freestyle (2:06.74) and the 200-yard breaststroke (2:41.75), while junior Anna Leedham (Lowell, Mass.) placed second in the 200-yard butterfly with a time of 2:25.51 and third in the 100-yard butterfly with a clip of 1:04.85. Sophomore Sarah Singleton (Mission Hills, Calif.) also scored seven points for the Sharks, finishing second in the 200-yard individual medley with a time of 2:25.21 and third in the 200-yard backstroke with a mark of 2;25.40. Howard made her Simmons debut with a second-place showing in the 100-yard freestyle on a time of 59.11 and junior Elizabeth Bartlett (Richmond, Mass.) placed second in the 100-yard breastroke with a time of 1:15.40 to give the Sharks three of the top four finishers in the event. 

Simmons returns to the water on Saturday, October 26 when it hosts Westfield State University at 4:00 p.m. in the Holmes Sports Center Natatorium.

 

Scoreboard