Two School Record Relays Lead Tartans at UAA Championships
(ATLANTA, Ga.) - The Carnegie Mellon University women's swimming and diving team opened the University Athletic Association (UAA) Championships on Thursday with two school records and currently sit fourth with two days remaining in the competition.
The 200-yard freestyle relay team of junior Cassidy Smith (Carlisle, Mass. / Concord-Carlisle Regional), freshman Emma Graham (Mount Lebanon, Pa. / Mount Lebanon), sophomore Mary Day (Warren, N.J. / Mount Saint Mary Academy), and sophomore Victoria Feng (Hopkinton, Mass. / Hopkinton) began the finals session with a school-record performance, touching the final wall in 1:36.12 to take fourth in the event.
At the end of the night, the Tartans earned the team's second school record when the 400-yard medley relay team of Day, senior Kim Hochstedler (Mishawaka, Ind. / Penn), senior Mary St. John (Bethesda, Md. / Sidwell Friends School), and sophomore Emma Nicklas-Morris (Winston-Salem, N.C. / RJ Reynolds) finished the race in 3:48.34.
In between the school records, sophomore Taylor Brown (San Antonio, Texas / Johnson) set a career-best mark of 5:07.59 while placing 20th overall in the 500-yard freestyle. Freshman Megan Christy (Pittsburgh, Pa. / North Allegheny) was just behind her in a career-best time of 5:08.48.
St. John competed in the top final of the 200-yard IM and finished sixth overall in 2:06.59. Senior Emma Shi (Penfield, N.Y. / Penfield) led five Tartans in the second final of the event, touching first in the heat and ninth overall in 2:05.58. Her time was a career best and the top time of the season for the team. Both St. John and Shi have provisionally qualified for the NCAA Championships.
Smith picked up a ninth-place finish in the 50-yard freestyle, touching the wall in 24.00. Freshman Sophy Peng (Fremont, Calif. / American) and Day also competed in the second final of the event, finishing 15th and 16th, respectively in 24.75 and 24.79.
On Wednesday night, freshman Maddie Mianzo (Pittsburgh, Pa. / North Allegheny) achieved a score surpassing the NCAA Diving Regional qualifying mark when she earned 404.05 points on the 1-meter board, placing seventh.
The championships continue on Friday with preliminaries in the morning at the Woodruff P.E. Center on the campus of Emory University.