LONG BEACH — The Westmont women’s swim team dove into the 2022-23 season by competing in the Pacific Collegiate Swim Conference Relay and Pentathlons Meet last Friday and Saturday.
The relay portion of the event included conference teams from both the NCAA Division II and the NAIA.
“Overall the team had a lot of events to swim this weekend,” noted Westmont Head Coach Jill Jones Lin, “but they all rose above and pushed through some hard races despite feeling fatigued. This is a fun meet to see a wide range of events. It gives us a good baseline for the rest of the season.”
The Warriors swam in 11 relay events Friday, highlighted by the return of Bailey Lemmon to the pool. Due to an injury, the senior had not competed since her freshman year. Lemmon led off the 200 yard freestyle relay, turning in a time of 25.61, which is just 0.03 second off the NAIA Championships provisional qualifying time.
Lemmon, Daisy Marquardt, Ellie Muench and Rian Lewandowski finished sixth in the event with a time of 1:47.91.
The Warrior team of Olivia Garrison, McKenzie Rion, Kassy Gregory and Lauren Healy claimed fourth place in the 4 x 200 yard relay, finishing in a time of 8:30.27. Muench, Ella Chaisson, Emma Diehl and Leighton Bell posted a time of 4:22.57 in the 4 x 100 yard relay to finish sixth.
On Saturday, three different pentathlon events were held:
— Sprint pentathlon: 50 yard butterfly, 50 yard backstroke, 50 yard breaststroke, 100 individual medley and the 50 yard freestyle.
— Distance pentathlon: 100 yard butterfly, 100 yard backstroke, 100 yard breaststroke, the 100 yard free style and the 200 individual medley.
— Freestyle pentathlon: 50, 200, 500, 100 and 25 yards.
Chaisson was Westmont’s top finisher in the pentathlon competitions. In the distance pentathlon, Chaisson finished fourth out of 22 competitors with an overall time of 6:26.58.
As part of the pentathlon, Chaisson recorded two NAIA Championships provisional qualifying time. In the 100 yard backstroke, her time of 1:01.63 beat the standard by 0.81 second. In the 200 yard individual medley, the sophomore posted a time of 2:14.15, which is 2.66 seconds faster than the championship provisional standard.
Lewandowksi placed 10th out of 36 competitors in the sprint pentathlon with an overall time of 3:03.48. She was second among NAIA competitors.
In the freestyle pentathlon, freshman Lauren Healy was the Warriors’ top finisher, placing 29th with a time of 9:42.68.
The Warriors will be back in action this weekend when they travel to Malibu to compete in the Rodlonoff Invitational at Pepperdine on Friday and Saturday.
Ron Smith is the sports information director at Westmont College.
email: sports@newspress.com
