Thursday Results

SYRACUSE, NY (February 18, 2010) – After the first day of competition at the New York State Women's Collegiate Athletic Association (NYSWCAA) Swimming and Diving's Championships on Thursday, Vassar College is in 13th place out of 16 teams and looking to move up on Friday when the list of events features a number of the Brewers' strengths.

Ithaca College sits atop the leader-board with 448 points heading into Friday with Stevens Institute of Technology (411 points) and Nazareth College (299 points) rounding out the top three. In 13th place with 80 points, the Brewers are five points ahead of 14th place William Smith College and six points behind 12th place Utica College.

“Although the first day doesn't necessarily include events that are our strengths, I'm really pleased with how we did today and we're in great position to move up tomorrow,” said interim head coach Paul Kueterman, noting in particular that the 400 IM, 100 Breast, and 100 Back tend to be Vassar's strengths. In the 400 IM, freshman Shannon Sara is seeded third while sophomore teammate Caroline Shannon is seeded sixth. Shannon is seeded 10th in the 100 Breast, and Sara 13th in the 100 Back.

The 200 Free Relay team of freshman Sydnie Alquist, junior Meg McCarty, senior Alyse Larkin, and senior Jordana Jantze started the evening's finals session off strong, placing 11th with a time of 1:42.75. The Brewers then got another strong relay showing to end the evening, as the 400 Medley Relay team of Sara, Shannon, Alquist, and Jantze placed 12th with a time of 4:16.25.

“Everyone in the relays really stepped up and swam great splits,” said Kueterman.

Although they did not make the evening's final session, the diving duo of sophomore Christie Musket and freshman Carolyn McLean still garnered Vassar points in the morning's preliminary 1-meter dive. Musket placed 17th with a score of 304.45 while McLean finished 22nd with 278.05 points.

“Although they didn't make the evening finals because only the top eight divers from the preliminaries advance, Christie and Carolyn did a great job in the preliminaries to get those points,” said Kueterman.

Shannon turned in a top-20 performance in the 200 IM, finishing 20th with a time of 2:16.93. Although she did not advance to the finals, sophomore Amy Entwisle turned in a personal best in the 500 Free with a time of 5:41.54.

“Everybody swam well today, and we're really looking forward to swimming some of our strengths tomorrow,” said Kueterman.

The NYSWCAA Championships are held at Nottingham High School and hosted by Le Moyne College.