Relay Teams Highlight Women’s Swimming and Diving at First Day of the UAA Championships

Feb. 21 – (ROCHESTER, N.Y.) – The Carnegie Mellon women’s swimming and diving team swam at the first day of the University Athletic Association (UAA) Championships Thursday, February 21, held at the University of Rochester.

The Tartans two relay teams highlighted day one for the Cardinal and Gray. The 200-yard freestyle relay team started the finals touching the wall two tenths of a second away from setting a school record. Their time of 1:38.93, their season-best, was good enough for second place. In the last even of the evening, the 400-yard medley relay team placed third setting a school record with a NCAA provisional time of 3:58.15. The team broke the old mark by 2.47 seconds.

Carnegie Mellon had two individual third place finishes with the first coming from freshman Molly Evans (Butler, Pa.) in the 500-yard freestyle. She recorded a personal-best time of 5:04.65 in the finals. Her time improved her already NCAA provisional mark by over one second.

The second third place finish on Thursday came when senior Lauren Connell (Hasbrouck Hts., N.J.) touched the wall with a time of 24.46 in the 50-yard freestyle. She had a personal-best time in the preliminaries with a NCAA provisional mark of 24.43. Freshman teammate Brianne Burton (Amherst, N.Y./Amherst Central) finished .68 seconds behind Connell in the finals bringing home seventh place for the Tartans.

Junior diver Charlotte Jennings (Yardley, Pa./Notre Dame) placed fifth in the women’s one-meter with 375.35 points and junior Alex DeFazio (Pittsburgh, Pa./North Allegheny) totaled 339.10 points to place seventh.

Junior Allison Retotar (Gillette, N.J./Watchung Hills) took eighth place in the 200-yard IM after swimming a personal-best 2:13.47 in the finals.

The meet continues with preliminary events in the morning of Friday, February 22 with finals to follow in the evening.