Athenas Open At UCSD

The CMS Athenas faced an early season challenge at Division II UC-San Diego on Saturday, October 30.  Despite ending on the short side of a 189 to 103 score, the Athenas splashed to a number of impressive early season performances.

First-year Athena, Michele Kee earned the day's sole victory, winning the 100 yard butterfly in 58.32. Kee's time is tied for third best in CMS history. Kee also placed second in the 100 breast in 1:08.14 and played key roles in a pair of quick relays.

To open the meet, CMS posted a fast 200 yard medley relay time. The team of Elsa Cheng, Emma Jones, Helen Liu and Michele Kee placed second in 1:50.22.  Three of the splits earned slots on CMS's all-time top 10 list.  Later in the meet, Kee, Liu and Jones teamed with senior Jenni Rinker for the meet's second quickest 400 yard freestyle relay.  The squad's time of 3:37.78 was the fastest non-championship 400 free relay performance in CMS history.

"We learned some positive things about ourselves today," according to Coach Charlie Griffiths. "The Athenas have always taken great pride in their relay performances, so it was exciting to see our new swimmers embrace the opportunity and begin to establish themselves in that tradition."

Beyond the relays, CMS were runners-up in a several events.  Other second place finishers for the Athenas were Tara McIntyre (1000 freestyle), Emma Jones (200 freestyle and 100 freestyle), Elsa Cheng (100 back), Helen Liu (50 free), Tessa Dover (200 backstroke), and Heidi Wolfgruber (200 IM).

On the boards, Carmen Lundell was CMS's top finisher, with third place scores in both the 1-meter and 3-meter diving competitions.

CMS is back in action in two weeks at the Redlands Pentathlon.