Securing an 118-68 win against Loomis Chaffee on Saturday, Andover Girls Swimming & Diving placed top three in both diving and the last individual event — the 100-Meter Breaststroke. The team’s record now stands at 2-0.
After a close 95-91 win against Choate in the team’s first meet last week, Andover was enthusiastic to race again, according to Grace Hitchcock ’20.
“Not only was the meet against Choate a strong start to the season that inspired us to continue working hard, [but] the team was really supportive and enthusiastic. I definitely think that helped us carry a lot of positivity and good thought into the meet against Loomis,” said Hitchcock.
The Loomis meet opened with Andover claiming first in the 200-Meter Medley Relay, which consisted of Co-Captain Emma Donchi ’18, Yifei Wu ’18, Liz Tran ’19, and Abby Ryan ’21 with a time of 2:06.58 minutes, beating the second place finishers by four seconds. Andover quickly followed up with second-, third-, and fourth-place finishes in the 200-Meter Freestyle, with Co-Captain Jess Gearan ’18, Hailey Wadell ’21, and Macey Mannion ’19 going 2:17.80 minutes, 2:20.87 minutes, and 2:20.89 minutes, respectively.
The 400-Freestyle event proved to be one of the closest events of the day, with three swimmers finishing within a second of each other, two of which were Wadell and Hitchcock.
“All three swimmers were within a few seconds of each other for the duration of the race. After the last turn, all three swimmers sprinted to the finish, and Hailey out-touched the Loomis swimmer to secure first, and Grace placed third. Even after a long race like the 400, Hailey won by 0.1 seconds. Grace was 0.15 seconds off of the second place Loomis swimmer. It was a thrilling race to watch,” said Ryan.
Andover consistently won in individual events. Liz Tran ’19 swam with times of 2:27.32 minutes and 1:06.51 minutes in the 200-Meter Individual Medley and 100-Meter Butterfly, respectively, to claim first place in both events. Donchi also obtained a first place finish in the 100-Meter Backstroke with a time of 1:09.00 minutes.
Concluding the individual events with the 100-Meter Breaststroke, Wu, Kathleen Ty ’19, and Lindi Schroeder ’20 swam with times of 1:21.59 minutes, 1:24.10 minutes, and 1:25.43 minutes, respectively, to sweep first, second, and third place.
Andover’s excellence continued in the diving portion of the meet. Reese Pelletier ’20, Claire Davis ’20, and Ora Cullen ’19 scored 204.10, 185.35, and 169.75 points, respectively. Together, they claimed the top three spots of the event.
After winter break, Andover Girls Swimming & Diving will face Suffield and Peddie in a tri-meet. The team hopes to continue its undefeated record, according to Ty.
Ty said, “I am so excited to see how fast we swim in the coming meets. There are a lot of swimmers who can swim a variety of events. We have a lot of speed and depth in the team, which is always very exciting to watch in meets.”
