First-Year Swimmers Shine to Lead Athenas to Win over Pomona-Pitzer

CLAREMONT, Calif. - The Claremont-Mudd-Scripps women's swimming and diving team won 12 of the 15 individual events over the two-day meet, including eight from its freshmen class, as it finished off a 195-158 win over Pomona-Pitzer on Dec. 1 at Axelrood Pool.

With the win, the No. 12-ranked Athenas improve to 4-3 in dual meets this season, including a perfect 4-0 in the SCIAC, after taking a narrow 149-141 win over Occidental in its last meet. 



Freshman Augusta Lewis won a meet-best three events overall, all in Axelrood Pool record times, adding wins in the 400-yard IM (4:31.17) and the 200-yard breaststroke (2:20.80) today to a win in the 200 IM (2:06.29) on Friday. Freshman Ava Sealander swept both butterfly events on Saturday, while freshman Leila El Masri added a win in the 200-yard freestyle to a win in the 500 free that she earned yesterday. Freshman Natalie Larsen, who finished second behind Lewis in both individual medley races, earned a first-place finish of her own in the 200 back. 

CMS also started the day with a three-meter diving win from sophomore Emily Bhatt (238.25 points), to go along with the one-meter win that senior Jacque Desmond earned on Friday. The Athenas capped off the individual events with a convincing win from sophomore Mia Syme in the 1650, who lapped everyone in the pool except El Masri, who came in second. Junior Jocelyn Crawford captured the 50 free yesterday, breaking her own school record by .05 with a time of 23.29. 

The day began with CMS taking the 200-yard medley relay, with Crawford swimming the backstroke leg, followed by freshman Rachel Wander, Sealander and sophomore Allie Umemoto, who won the race to the wall by just .08 (1:44.87 to 1:44.95).

Lewis followed in the 400-yard IM with a facility record 4:31.17, passing the Axelrood mark set by Michelle Kee in 2012 (4:32.68), her second pool record of the weekend. El Masri then led a 1-2-3 finish in the 200-yard freestyle with a 1:54.94, edging out Umemoto (1:55.24) and senior Riley Hoffman (1:55.31) in a three-way battle to the finish.

Sealander took the first of her two wins in the 100 fly in 56.87, and Larsen won the 200 back in a close race in 2:06.38, edging Lavinya Yap of Pomona-Pitzer by .17 and tying the Axelrood Pool record set two weeks ago by Emily Driscoll of Occidental. After Pomona-Pitzer won the 100 free, Lewis put her name in the Axelrood Pool record books for the third time in 24 hours, finishing in 2:20.80 in the 200-yard breaststroke to pass the standard held by current junior Claire Bacon-Brenes (2:21.91), who is studying abroad in the fall semester.  

Sealander added another win for the Athenas in the 200-yard butterfly, winning by a half-second over Anna Newman of Pomona-Pitzer after rallying from behind over the final 50 yards, while Larsen finished third. Syme then capped off the individual dominance for the Athenas with a time of 17:43.23 in the 1650, winning by 27 seconds. The Sagehens won the final freestyle relay, but it wasn't nearly enough to make up a 40-point deficit. 

CMS will be out of action for the next month, before the distance swimmers return to the pool on January 4 at Cal Baptist and the divers return on Jan. 6 against Westminster. The next full meet will be on Saturday, Jan. 12 at Whittier.