Athenas Swim and Dive Takes Two Wins in SCIAC Opener

CLAREMONT, Calif. - The Claremont-Mudd-Scripps women's swimming and diving team, the defending SCIAC Champions, opened league play in 2023-24 by defeating Whittier 224-67 and Chapman 192-107 in a tri-meet on Saturday at Axelrood Pool.

Revere Schmidt (500 free, 400 IM) and Mackenzie Mayfield (50 free, 100 fly) each picked up two individual wins for CMS, which won 11 events on the day (out of 18), as Mayfield also contributed to both relay wins. 

CMS opened up by taking two diving victories, as Meilan Uyeno was first in the one-meter with 179.40 points and Alexis Romero took first in the three-meter with 234.85 points. Romero was also the runner-up to Uyeno in the one-meter with 156.30 points. 

The Athenas then opened the swimming portion of the meet with the top two finishers in the 200-yard medley relay. The A team of Annette Chang, Mayfield, Sun Young Byun and Ally Rudolph was first in 1:46.40, with the B team of Florence Lin, Milan Manfredi, Lexi Lee and Allison Nguyen taking second in 1:49.95. 

Katy Shaw won the 1000-yard freestyle by over 20 seconds in the first individual race of the meet, finishing in 10:40.27 with teammate Alex Towers in second. Manfredi earned her first individual win as an Athena in the 100-yard breaststroke with a strong 1:06.43, over 2.5 seconds ahead of teammate Allyson Yao in 1:09.09. 

Byun followed with another dominant performance in the 200 fly, clocking a 2:07.32 to win by over eight seconds over teammate Debbie Wells. Byun moved into ninth place on the all-time CMS list with her time. 

Mayfield earned a strong win in the 50-yard freestyle with a 24.50, winning by almost a half-second over Ryanne Doherty of Chapman, and then added a win in the 100 fly with a 56.86 to defeat Kiana Tanizaki-Hudson of Chapman by over a full second. 

Schmidt then had a terrific close to the meet by winning two difficult events just 15 minutes apart, taking the 500 free in 5:15.94 (with teammate Kyra Burns second) and then coming back after an intermission to win the 400 IM in 4:38.63. Last week, Schmidt earned All-SCIAC honors for the cross country team to help the Athenas to the league title and will head to the NCAA West Regionals next weekend to try to earn a trip to the NCAA Championships on Nov. 18.

CMS capped off the meet with a win in the 200-yard freestyle relay, with Rudolph, Mayfield, Shaw and Chang closing the meet out with a 1:37.23 to finish first. 

CMS will be back in action on Saturday when it hosts Caltech in a dual at Axelrood Pool, beginning at 10:30 a.m.