CMS Women's Swimming and Diving Returns to Action, Falls at Division I Cal Baptist

RIVERSIDE, Calif. - Competing for the first time in over a month, the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps women's swimming and diving team fell on the road to Division I Cal Baptist on Friday afternoon by a final score of 168-69.

The Athenas, who last competed on December 1 when they defeated Pomona-Pitzer in a two-day meet, fall to a deceptive 4-4 on the season with the loss. Two of the losses have come to programs transitioning to Division I (UC San Diego, Cal Baptist) and the other two came to teams ranked in the top 19 in Division III at a tri-meet (WashU, Chicago). 

The meet against Cal Baptist featured an unusual format as most events covered longer distances than the NCAA standards. The backstroke, breaststroke, butterfly and IM all were 300-yard events, instead of the normal 100-yard and 200-yard distances, while the medley and freestyle relays both covered 500 yards instead of the usual 200 or 400. 

The Lancers won most of the individual events, but the Athenas did close out strong, as freshman Augusta Lewis (pictured) took first place in the 300-yard breaststroke with a time of 3:50.75, almost eight seconds faster than the second-place finisher (Alexa Melara of Cal Baptist). Lewis also had a third-place finish in the 300 IM. 

Sophomore Mia Syme earned a pair of runner-up finishes in the distance events, clocking a time of 10:52.05 in the 1000 and 5:21.13 in the 500. Sophomore Elena Kovachevich came through with a second-place finish in the 300-yard backstroke in 3:32.23, just under two seconds off the pace of winner Emily Longfellow. 

CMS will be back in action on Sunday when the divers compete at home against Westminster (Pa.) before the Athenas get back to SCIAC competition with a full meet at Whittier on Saturday, Jan. 12.