Mia Syme, 400 Free Relay Team, Earn Honorable Mention All-America Honors to Close Out NCAA Championships

Greensboro, N.C. - Sophomore Mia Syme finished in 13th place in the 1650 and the 400-yard freestyle relay team came in 12th as the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps women's swimming and diving team concluded the NCAA Division III Championships by adding five more honorable mention All-Americans to the program's rich history on Saturday at the Greensboro Aquatic Center.

The 400-yard freestyle relay team featured two seniors competing in their final collegiate event, Riley Hoffman and Emma Stacy, who swam the first and third legs respectively. Sophomore Janet Tran swam the second leg, and sophomore Natalia Orbach-Mandel swam the final leg to help the Athenas qualify for the consolation finals with a 13th place finish in prelims at 3:27.92.

The quartet then improved both their time and their place in the evening session, touching the wall in 3:27.75 to come in 12th place overall, edging out Ursinus and Johns Hopkins. 

Syme finished the 1650 in 17:06.97 to come in 13th, an improvement of 13 seconds over her time at last year's NCAA Championships, when she finished in 19th place. She was less than one second ahead of Alison McNamara of Williams in 14th place (17:07.48) and Carlee Timmins of Rowan in 15th place (17:07.63). 

Freshman Augusta Lewis also competed on Saturday in the 200-yard breaststroke, after previously earning honorable mention All-America honors in the 200 IM and 400 IM on Wednesday and Thursday. Lewis, who was the SCIAC Swimmer and Newcomer of the Year this season, swam a 2:20.93 in the 200 breast, which was good for a top-20 finish (18th), but just missed qualifying for the evening session (top 16) by .39. 

CMS ended up finishing in 22nd place as a team (out of 50 teams that scored) at the NCAA Championships with 36 points, half of which came from relays and half from individual events. The 400-yard freestyle relay team earned 10 points, the 800-yard freestyle relay (Hoffman, Orbach-Madel, sophomore Allie Umemoto, and freshman Leila El Masri) earned six, and the 200-yard medley relay (junior Jocelyn Crawford, junior Bryn Edwards, Tran, Orbach-Mandel) earned two.

Individually, Lewis earned seven points in the 400 IM and five points in the 200 IM, Syme picked up four points in the 1650 and Crawford had two in the 50 free.

The Athenas will head into next season with nine of the 11 swimmers who competed at this year's nationals returning, including four (Lewis, Syme, Crawford, and freshman Ava Sealander) who qualified in individual events.