Keydet Swim Team Breaks Records at W&L
LEXINGTON, Va. – The VMI swimming and diving teams broke several records at Washington & Lee University Saturday in a tri-meet with the Generals and Randolph College.
Both Keydet squads defeated the WildCats (219-33 men's; 181-36 women's), but fell to Washington & Lee (156-106 men's; 203-52 women's).
Freshman Stephen Hopta broke two more records this week after setting one last weekend at Old Dominion. He swam a 9:53.82 in the 1,000-yard freestyle to win the event and break his own school record. He set the VMI freshmen record and won the 200-backstroke with a time of 1:53.28 and took second in the 200-butterfly in 1:56.82.
Senior Brady Gannon won two events, including swimming his lifetime best in the 50-freestyle (21.38). He also won the 100-freestyle in 47.68 while junior Ryan Schmitz was second in 48.65. Jacob Smilie was second in the 100-free (54.20), as was Colin Gibbons in the 500-free (5:03.99) and 1,000-free (10:26.86). Andrew Mills had a second-place finish in the 100-butterfly in 53.23 and Hopta, Nick Palmieri, Gannon and Schmitz finished the 200-free medley relay in 1:26.23 to finish second.
On the women's side, junior Morgan Davis broke her own school record in the women's 200 butterfly, placing second in 2:15.16. Sophie Svoboda broke VMI's freshmen record in the 100-freestyle, taking second in 54.80. She also won the 200-IM in 2:12.76 and was third in the 50-free in 25.41.
The 200-medley relay team of Carisa Kunkle, Svoboda, Calle Biles and Sarah MacDougall came in third place in 1:57.11. Makenna Moore swam a 12:41.25 to finish second in the 1,000-yard freestyle.
“After last week's stellar performance, I knew it would be hard to top many of those swims, but the team brought it again and made today our best performance overall to date,” said Andrew Bretscher, VMI head men's & women's swimming & diving coach. “We raced hard and put up some really quick times for this point in the season, and I am very proud of that. We had a number of records broken, some personal bests, and a lot of event wins. Results like this prove we are on the right path to swim very fast at conferences next month. We will enjoy the results from this meet, but will continue pushing forward into a tough William and Mary squad next week.”
VMI travels to the College of William & Mary next Saturday.
