Miami’s women’s swimming and diving team defeated Eastern Michigan, 176-124, at the Nixon Aquatic Center, earning their eighth straight win in the process.
The RedHawks, now 8-1 in dual meets this season and 6-0 in Mid-American Conference competition, used another surge from their distance swimmers to pull out ahead of the visiting Eagles for good. Miami hasn’t lost since October.
“We had a great second half to the meet,” said head coach Mark Davis, “We really faced some adversity for the first time this season and then distance went out and went one, two, three and even four. That really helped us… we got on a roll there.”
Miami used eight individual first-place finishes, including two from junior Katie Bootsma, to ultimately pull off the win for the RedHawks. Also taking first-place was junior Courtney Collett, senior Cynthia Donovan, sophomore Aubrey Kluth, freshman Stephanie LeMire, junior Annie Marquiss and junior Stephanie Pearce.
Following a first-place finish in the 200 medley relay by the team of senior Brianna Fujan, sophomore Emma Szczupakiewicz, LeMire and Donovan (1:46.07), the RedHawks took the top three spots in the 1000 freestyle event. Pearce won the event by nearly 11 seconds with a time of 10:18.85. Sophomore Kelly Rogers took second (10:29.10) and freshman Julia Campbell finished a close third at 10:29.34.
Bootsma was a two-time winner, sweeping the backstroke events. In the 100 backstroke, she finished with a time of 57.90. She took the 200 backstroke with a time of 2:06.12. She also finished second in the 200 IM behind teammate Kluth. Bootsma finished with a time of 2:08.37, while Kluth won with 2:07.64.
Collett was a winner in the 500 freestyle with a time of 5:02.29. Pearce took second-place (5:03.07). She also was the top RedHawk finisher in the 200 freestyle with a third-place finish (1:53.15).
Donovan took the 50 freestyle with a time of 23.79. Marquiss took second (23.93) with sophomore Sara Krueger taking fourth (24.35).
In addition to her contributions in the 200 medley relay, LeMire took first in the 200 breaststroke and second in the 100 breaststroke. She had times of 2:19.19 and 1:05.01, respectively.
Marquiss won the 100 freestyle with a time of 52.26 and took second in the 50 freestyle. She was also a member of Miami’s third-place finishing 200 medley relay team, with freshman Brittany Dudzinski, senior Nicole Wagner and sophomore Elizabeth Zilch, and was a member of Miami’s 400 freestyle relay team that finished first. Krueger, sophomore Natalie Rohr and junior Caitlin Fujan were each members of the RedHawks first-place team (3:29.52).
Wagner was particularly busy for the RedHawks with a two individual third-place finishes in the 100 breaststroke (1:05.12) and the 200 IM (2:08.37). She also took fourth in the 200 breaststroke (2:23.98) just behind teammate freshman Claire Mongenas (2:23.45), who took third.
Miami returns to the pool to compete against Ohio University
on Saturday, Feb. 8, at 10 a.m. in the Nixon Aquatic Center.
