Gracey Hiebert won a tight race to the wall in the 500 free
Gracey Hiebert won a tight race to the wall in the 500 free
Posted: Feb 09, 2020

CMS Women's Swimming and Diving wins Nine Events in Final Regular Season Meet

CLAREMONT, Calif. - The Claremont-Mudd-Scripps women's swimming and diving team had its final tuneup before the SCIAC Championships at Axelrood Pool on Saturday, hosting Pomona-Pitzer in the CMS Invitational.

The invitational was a loose format with no team scoring and mixed relays, with the Stags and Athenas both competing on the same relay teams against the Sagehens, as both squads used the finale to fine-tune before the conference championships get underway. 

After CMS was second in the mixed medley relay to open the meet, first-year Gracey Hiebert picked up a close win in the 500, finishing in 5:09.22 to edge Katherine Lauerman of Pomona-Pitzer by .12. Sophomore Natalie Larsen followed with a close win in the 200 IM, edging fellow sophomore Ava Sealander 2:12.52 to 2:12.99.

Sophomore Rachel Wander led 1-2-3 finishes in both breaststroke events, taking the 100-yard breaststroke in 1:07.44, followed by first-year Caroline Sundal and junior Laura Dickinson. In the 200, she finished in 2:28.37, followed by Sundal and senior Liv Baker.  

Sophomore Augusta Lewis deviated from her usual strokes to win the 100-yard butterfly in 58,83, just ahead of Allison Liu of Pomona-Pitzer in 59.16, while Sealander won the 200 fly in 2:09.21, just ahead of first-year teammate Arisa Cowe in 2:09.40. 

First-year Ella Blake led a 1-2-3 finish for CMS in the 200 free in 1:56.10, followed by junior Allie Umemoto and junior Natalia Orbach-Mandel. Junior Mia Syme earned first place in the 1650 in 18:01.36.

CMS capped off the meet with a win in the mixed 200-yard freestyle relay, with junior Stags Andreas Roeseler and Marco Conati swimming the first two legs, and Sealander and Orbach-Mandel swimming the third and fourth legs. The quartet finished in 1:30.42, to beat Pomona-Pitzer by almost a full second (1:31.24). 

The Athenas will next be in action when they host the SCIAC Diving Championships on Saturday and Sunday, Feb. 15-16, while the swimming portion of the SCIAC Championships will be from Feb. 20-23 in Commerce, California.