CMS Women's Swimming and Diving Edges Occidental 149-141, Cruises Past Caltech

CMS Women's Swimming and Diving Edges Occidental 149-141, Cruises Past Caltech

CLAREMONT, Calif. - The Claremont-Mudd-Scripps women's swimming and diving team hosted a tri-meet against Occidental and Caltech on Saturday, and the Athenas had the dual with Occidental come right down to the final relay before emerging with a hard-fought 149-141 win on Saturday afternoon at Axelrood Pool.

The final score against Caltech was 221-77 as the Athenas improve to 3-3 on the year, including 3-0 in the SCIAC with the pair of wins. 

The win over Occidental was anything but certain, as the Tigers led after the second intermission with only two events left. CMS came up big after that, though, with freshman Augusta Lewis coming through with her third individual win of the day in the 200 IM, followed by freshman Natalie Larsen.

That brought CMS within a single point, leaving everything to the 400-yard freestyle relay, and the Athenas were able to win by a healthy margin. At the midway point, the Tigers held a narrow lead by four-tenths of a second, but senior Emma Stacy stepped up with a huge 53.85 leg (compared to her Occidental counterpart's 56.37) to give CMS a lead of 1.48 seconds heading into the final leg. Sophomore Allie Umemoto took it from there, swimming a 53.93 for the final 100 to give CMS a win by almost three full seconds, and the 11 points it needed to clinch the dual win. 

The day started with diving and CMS picked up what turned out to be some very valuable points. Senior Jacque Desmond took first in the one-meter with an aggregate score of 267.75, while sophomore Emily Bhatt was third with 181.30. In the three-meter competition, Bhatt (222.20) and Desmond (207.25) went 1-2 to give the Athenas a lead heading into the swimming portion of the competition. 

After CMS took the medley relay, Occidental captured the 1000, and the Athenas responded with a narrow win in the 200 free as Umemoto touched the wall in 1:57.34 to edge out Brittany Percin of Caltech by just .11. Lewis earned her first win of the day in the 100 breast in 1:07.98, but the Tigers won the 100 back, the 200 fly and the 50 free to pull within striking distance going into the first intermission. 

After Occidental won the 100 free and the 200 back to take the lead, Lewis slowed down the momentum with a key win in the 200 breast in 2:23.85. Freshman Leila El Masri then picked up a win in the 500, before Occidental finished 1-3-4 in the 100 fly to take the lead going into the second intermission, putting a lot of pressure on CMS for the final two events, but the Athenas were able to respond. 

After a break for Thanksgiving, the Athenas will be back in action when they host Pomona-Pitzer in another SCIAC dual split over two days, with part of the meet on Friday, November 30 and the conclusion on Saturday, December 1.