The Wheaton College men's and women's swimming&diving teams opened the season at Roger Williams University's Aquatics Center on Wednesday afternoon, as the women claimed a 175.5-121.5 victory over the Hawks while the men suffered a 192-104 setback. Roger Williams' men improved to 1-1, while its women slipped to 0-2 on the season.
Junior Dania Piscetta (Belmont, NH/Belmont) and sophomore Julia Wright (Pomfret, VT/Northfield Mount Hermon School) each won a pair of events to lead the Wheaton women to 11 victories. Piscetta topped the 200-yard backstroke and 200-yard individual medley competitions, while Wright captured the one- and three-meter diving events.
Senior captain Sarah Houlihan (West Springfield, MA/West Springfield) won the 500-yard freestyle, junior Nicole Zais (Sudbury, MA/Lincoln-Sudbury Regional) took first in the 200-yard breaststroke, while sophomores Taryn Brosnan (Westford, MA/Academy of Notre Dame) and Sarah Miller (Madison, NJ/Madison) won the 200-yard butterfly and free races, respectively.
In her first college event, freshman Caroline Isaacs (San Jose, CA/Archbishop Mitty) won the 1,000-yard freestyle by more than 16 seconds over the runner up, while classmate Kirstie Parkinson (Singapore, Singapore/Singapore American School) took the 50-yard breaststroke race during the initial individual event of her career.
During the final women's event, the 200-yard freestyle relay team edged out a Hawk quartet by 0.11 seconds. Wheaton's top foursome was comprised of juniors Kathleen Dwyer (Barrington, RI/Barrington) and Samantha Farrell (Reading, MA/Reading Memorial) and freshmen Dana Auger (Milford, MA/Milford) and Julia Kusiak Carey (Shawmut, ME/Lawrence).
On the men's side, junior captain Sam Dean-Lee (Rocky Hill, CT/Xavier) won the 200-yard freestyle, while classmate Eddie Gillie (Haverhill, MA/Saint John's Prep) took second. Lyons again went one-two in the 200-yard butterfly, with sophomore Charles Western (Syracuse, NY/Nottingham) taking first and junior captain Corey Best (Brentwood, TN/Ravenwood) second. Junior Zach Fichman-Klein (North Attleboro, MA/North Attleboro) was victorious in the 50 fly.
Best was also the runner up in the 200-yard breaststroke and individual medley races, Gillie took second in the 500-yard freestyle, junior Jonathan Gold (West Harrison, NY/Fordham Prep) was second in the one-meter dive, and sophomore Devon Best (Brentwood, TN/Ravenwood) finished as the runner up in the 200-yard backstroke. Dean-Lee, Fichman-Klein, junior captain Ben Sabol (Saint Petersburg, FL/Shorecrest Prep) and freshman Sam Neill (Ludlow, MA/Belchertown) swam for the second-place 200 free relay quartet.
Both Wheaton squads kick off the home portion of their schedules on Saturday by facing Brandeis University and Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) at 12:00 p.m.
