NEW LONDON, Conn. –
Fighting to stay hot early in the year, Coast Guard women's swimming did just that in commanding fashion with a tri-meet sweep of Wheaton College(202-83) and Springfield College(184-111). The victories improve them to 6-0 on the season, 5-0 vs NEWMAC opponents.
The action started with a dominant 400 yard medley relay win for
Samantha Halvorson (Chesapeake, Va.),
Tessa Breitbart (Roseville, Calif.),
Maggie Erwin (San Antonio, Tex.), and
Kathleen O'Shea (Decatur, Ga.). O'Shea hit the wall over 10 seconds before the next finisher with a relay time of 4:04.84. Down the line at day's end, the Bears finished the day the same way they started it, with a strong relay win. The 400 yard freestyle relay saw O'Shea lead off and Halvorson as the final leg, with
Eleanor Murphy (McLean, Va.) and
Julia Thomas (Chandler, Ariz.) rounding out the four with a final time of 3:45.00. The second finishing squad in the free relay was also from Coast Guard, as
Morgan Moore (Stafford, Va.),
Liliana Feyk (Carlsbad, Calif.),
Andie Ko (Cary, N.C.), and
Jaida Lippy (Phoenix, Ariz.) finishing with a time of 3:48.56.
In between those two relay wins were a number of strong individual performances for CGA.
Quinn Putchinski (Rockwall, Tex.) and
Zoe Suhajda (Colorado Springs, Colo.) took the top two spots in both the 500 yard and 1000 yard free races. Putchinski's fellow freshman
Maggie Erwin continued the outstanding start to her career with two individual wins of her own. Erwin swam to a time of 2:10.50 in the 200 yard backstroke and 2:15.49 in the 200 IM. She had two Bears right behind her in the IM, as
Andie Ko and
Lucy Feliz (Millersville, Md.) took 2nd and 3rd.
Erwin also took 2nd in the 100 backstroke behind teammate
Samantha Halvorson. For Halvorson, the 59.32 second win in the 100 back would be her first of two individual wins on the day with her second coming later on in the 100 yard freestyle with a time of 54.67.
Also picking up individual wins were
Megan Doubrava (Aurora, Colo.) in the 200 yard butterfly and
Kathleen O'Shea in the 50 free. In the 50 free, the top three spots were all held by Bears with
Julia Thomas and
Eleanor Murphy taking 2nd and 3rd respectively.
Coast Guard will compete next on Thursday November 12th at Wellesley. The Wellesley Blue are currently 2-0 with wins over Wheaton(MA) and Merrimack.
