Westmont Women’s Swimming made a trip to the 49th State for two dual meets with the Nanooks of Alaska Fairbanks. In October the Nanooks traveled to Santa Barbara for a pair of dual meets. The Warriors won both meets in October, but the Nanooks triumphed both yesterday (118-87) and today (113-92).
“Overall it was a really good match-up between us and the Nanooks,” said Westmont’s head coach Jill Jones Lin. “It’s a lot of fun to be vying for points in every race and place. We had some pretty solid swims throughout the meet.”
The highlight of the meets for the Warriors was in the breaststroke races. Friday, the Warriors claimed the first three places in the 100 yard breaststroke. Ella Chaisson won the race with a time of 1:11.49. Daisy Marquardt placed second (1:13.83) and Abby Rickard finished third (1:14.75).
On Saturday, the same trio finished one-two-three in the 200 yard breaststroke with each one recording a season best time. Chaisson won the race in an NAIA National Championship provisional time of 2:32.87. Marquardt posted a time of 2:39.67 and Rickard touched the wall in a time of 2:41.00.
Chaisson also won the individual medley races. On Friday, she posted a provisional time of 2:15.97 to win the 200 yard individual medley. Then on Saturday, Chaisson finished in a time of 4:49.21 to win the 400 yard individual medley in another provisional qualifying time.
The 50 yard freestyle was competed on both days and Bailey Lemmon won both times with provisional times. On Friday, she swam the two-length race in a time of 25.55, then dropped another 0.09 seconds on Saturday.
Westmont opened the competition on Saturday with a win in the 200 yard medley relay. Morgan Bienias, Chaisson, Lemmon and Emma Diehl posted a time of 1:57.02 in the event, edging out the Alaska quartet by just 0.12 seconds.
“Our relays were actually the most impressive,” said Jones Lin. “Fielding two really strong relays has been a goal of mine and it’s exciting to see it happen.”
Westmont’s second team of Rian Lewandowski, Rickard, Emma Bustamante and Marquardt in the 200 yard medley relay took third in a time of 1:57.87 – within a second of the first place team.
“It was a hard fought loss,” noted Jones Lin of the Warriors falling to the Nanooks. “We had a lot of good speed in the first half of our races and just didn’t have the energy to finish how I would like to see. The Nanooks are tough competition and it was exciting to race alongside them. They challenged us to be better and that’s a big win for us.
“We’ve got a few more weeks until conference and I’m hopeful some taper and fine tuning will set us up for a great meet.”
Westmont will compete in the UCSB Last Chance Meet on Feb. 3 and 4, then travel to Monterey Park for the Pacific Coast Swim Conference Championships Feb. 8-11.
Ron Smith is the sports information director at Westmont College.
email: sports@newspress.com
