Cougars Set For City Championships

Worcester, Mass. – The 11th annual Worcester City Swimming and Diving Championships kick off on Friday at Holy Cross’ Hart Recreation Center Pool and a surging Clark University program is definitely one of the teams to keep an eye on.

The Cougars enter the weekend riding high after an excellent showing a week ago at their home dual meet against Mount Holyoke and Wheaton.

Although Clark has never won a team title, several individuals have done extremely well in various events.

All-American diver Eileen Garcia (New York, N.Y.) has been named Female Diver of the Meet in three consecutive seasons and has finished first on the 1-meter board every year. In 2011, she set the meet record on the three-meter board (316.95) – breaking her own record of 299.65.

Fellow All-American Ryan Garr (North Kingstown, R.I.) has enjoyed extreme success on College Hill in his three trips there. He is the two-time recipient of the Male Swimmer of the Meet award (2010, 2011) and still holds several meet records.

His time in the 200-yard backstroke in 2010 is the fastest in meet history and set a Hart Center record that stood for more than 23 years. In fact he has never lost in the 100-yard backstroke or the 200-yard backstroke and he has won 12 events (eight individual) in his three years of competition at the Championships.

Another Cougar who has fared well in this competition is junior Mollie Kleyboecker (Albuquerque, N.M.). After turning in three second place finishes as a freshman in 2009-10, Kleyboecker finally broke through in the 200-yard backstroke in 2010-11, touching the wall first a tenth of a second ahead of Assumption College’s Jill Burke. Kleyboecker has proven to be an asset on the relay teams as well, helping Clark to a pair of second place finishes in the 400-yard freestyle relay the last two seasons.

The Clark women had their string of five straight second place finishes snapped last year when Assumption edged them out, while the Cougar men registered their fourth highest point total in program history in 2010-11.