Records Fall Again, Cougars Remain In Sixth On Day Two

South Hadley, Mass. – Clark remained in sixth place after the second day of competition at the 2011 NEWMAC Women’s Swimming and Diving Championships at Mount Holyoke’s Natatorium on Saturday.

With just one day remaining, MIT has overtaken 10-time reigning champion Springfield College at the top of the leader board. The Engineers prevailed in five events to increase their point total to 614.5. Springfield remains in striking distance with 577.5 points. Meanwhile, the Coast Guard Academy rounds out the top three with 309 points.

The Cougars set four more school records led by Erin Smith (Carrollton, Texas), who set a new mark in the 50-yard backstroke (28.66) during Clark’s ninth place finish in the 200-yard medley relay (1:56.73). Smith also posted the second fastest time in the 200-yard freestyle (1:57.33).

Gabriela Jijon-Nemalceff (Quito, Ecuador) now holds the record in the 200-yard freestyle when she finished third in the finals with an NCAA “B” standard with a time of 1:54.19.

In the 400-yard individual medley, Mollie Kleyboecker (Albuquerque, N.M.) shattered a 16-year old school record by nearly seven seconds with her fourth place finish (4:40.20).

The 800-yard freestyle relay foursome of Jijon-Nemalceff, Smith, Kleyboecker, and Liz Rosen (North Attleboro, Mass.) shaved seven seconds off of the old mark en route to a fourth place finish with a time of 7:53.83. In the last two years, the 800-yard freestyle mark has been lowered by 17 seconds.

Day two, however, belonged to MIT as the Engineers took over first place with five victories during session four.

The MIT foursome of Christy Rogers, Calley Murphy, Anna Kokensparger and Elina Hu joined forces to win the 200-yard medley relay with a time of 1:45.91. Earlier in the day, they broke the NEWMAC Open and Championship records with their time of 1:45.36. Springfield’s Kerry Lynch, Janella Cuyler, Kaitlin Reilly and Kellie Pennington completed the race in 1:46.69 to secure second place. Both squads provisionally qualified for the NCAA Division III National Championships.

In addition to shattering the NEWMAC Open and Championship records with her time of 4:29.45 in the 400-yard individual medley, MIT’s Katelyn Rossick also provisionally qualified for the NCAA Championships in the event. She touched the wall more than eight second in front of teammate Alexandra Hall, who clocked a second place time of 4:37.89.

The Championship will conclude with seven more events tomorrow. Preliminaries of the 200-yard backstroke, 100-yard freestyle, 200-yard breaststroke, 200-yard butterfly, 400-yard freestyle relay and 1650-yard freestyle will take place beginning at 11:00 a.m. The finals of the three-meter diving event will begin at 1:30 p.m., while finals for the remaining events will begin at 6:30 p.m.