WORCESTER, MA – The Ephwomen are back at the WPI pool for Day 2 of the Gompei Invitational. This is the midseason meet for the Williams Swim and Dive Team. In the preliminary heats in the morning session, the Ephwomen swam in the Mixed 200 freestyle relay, 400 individual medley, 100 backstroke, 50 butterfly, 200 freestyle, 50 backstroke, 100 breaststroke, and Mixed 400 medley relay. The afternoon session featured the Ephwomen divers competing in their first 11 dive 1 meter meet of the season. Finally, the night featured the finals session for the swimming events, with the top 30 of each individual event from the preliminary heats competing alongside the Women's 200 freestyle relay and the 400 medley relay.
The diving trio of Lucy Savarese, Adelaide Herman, and Ashley Loh stunned the competition with a 2-3-4 finish. Freshman Savarese scored highest points on her back 1 ½ twist 1 ½ flip finishing with 455.55 total points. Loh had a clean front 2 somersault pike scoring 443.40 total points. Captain Herman had a stellar back 1 ½ somersault pike scoring a total of 439.55 points. They all achieved NCAA Regional diving cuts for the NCAA qualifying meet in February.
The night session kicked off with the 200 freestyle relay with the Williams A (Bernadette Ramoy, Irene Yang, Carter Roebuck, Zora Vujovic) B (Clare McDermott, Isabel Espinosa, Charlotte Wishnack, Azmera Gebre), and C (Amy Zhao, Aly Eward, Rika Yahashiri, Alden White) relay all in the final heat. Ramoy led off the heat in a blistering 24.00 in the A relay alongside McDermott (24.23) and Zhao (25.23) in the B and C relay respectively. The second leg of Yang, Espinosa, and Eward and third leg of Roebuck, Wishnack, and Yahashiri kept the momentum going in the Williams relays. Finally, the anchor of Vujovic of the A relay finished and touched first ahead of Gebre in the B relay and White in the C relay touching 6th and 12th respectively.
The first individual event was the 400 individual medley featuring Ruby Groves, Abi Greenberg, and Sophia Verkleeren as the top seed in the championship final. As expected, Verkleeren charged ahead of the pack and maintained her place touching the wall in a personal best time 4:16.77. Greenberg was right behind her with a quick breaststroke and freestyle leg touching second in a 4:30.44. Groves dropped 3 seconds from her morning swim touching third in a 4:32.66.
In the 100 backstroke, Alden White and Clementine Robins took on the championship final. White dropped .4 seconds from her morning swim touching fifth. Robins blasted a personal best touching first in a 56.81.
In the 50 butterfly, in the preconsolation final, Gracie O'Connell took the blocks. She had great breakouts off the walls touching fourth in a 27.68. Ruby Groves, Brielle Gold, Zora Vujovic and Caterina Li took on the consolation final and placed 12th (26.57), 14th (26.72), 16th (26.96), and 20th (27.57) respectively. Finally, in the championship final, Clare McDermott, Annika Chu, and Amy Zhao swam. With quick underwaters and fast tempo, they had a 5-7-10 finish.
In the 200 freestyle. Gracie O'Connell, Irene Yang, and Azmera Gebre took on the competition in the preconsolation final. O'Connell showed off her endurance and finished in a 1:58.24 touching 25th in the heat. Yang was right next to her and finished 23rd in a 1:57.09. Gebre touched first in a 1:56.69. In the consolation final, Charlotte Brawer was the sole Ephwoman in the heat. She swam a 1:58.27 touching 18th. The championship final was stacked with Carter Roebuck and Sophia Verkleeren leading the heat from their morning swims. The first year duo of Isabel Espinosa and Kyla Kelley also competed in this heat. Roebuck and Verkleeren had a tight race throughout but Roebuck took the win in a 1:50.80 in front of Verkleeren (1:51.05). Espinosa and Kelley finished 7th (1:54.88) and 9th (1:55.15) respectively both dropping timefrom their morning swim.
In the 50 backstroke, Brielle Gold first took the blocks in the consolation final with a 16th place finish (29.75). In the championship final, Alden White and Aly Eward came in as the top seeds alongside Clare McDermott. White and Eward kept their places with times of 26.90 and 26.83 respectively. McDermott also dropped from her morning swim touching 6th in a 28.02.
In the final individual event of the day, the 100 breaststroke. In the consolation final, Charlotte Brawer and Rika Yahashiri swam strong races finishing 19th and 14th in times of 1:09.51 and 1:07.99. In the championship final, Charlotte Wishnack, Carter Roebuck, Bernadette Ramoy and Issy Hiller took the blocks. Wishnack came out in an early lead and took the event win in a 1:03.43. Roebuck, Ramoy, and Hiller finished 5th (1:04.94), 7th (1:05.97), and 10th (1:06.75) respectively.
The final event of the night was the 400 medley relay. The Williams A (Irene Yang, Charlotte Wishnack, Sophia Verkleeren, Zora Vujovic), B (Alden White, Bernadette Ramoy, Abi Greenberg, Isabel Espinosa), and C (Aly Eward, Issy Hiller, Gracie O'Connell, Clare McDermott) relays all swam in the final heat in lanes right next to each other, setting them up for a tight race. The backstrokers of Yang, White, and Eward all had quick swims putting them in the 1-2-3 position. The breastrokers (Wishnack, Ramoy, and Hiller) and flyers (Verkleeren, Greenberg, and O'Connell) maintained their positions. Finally the freestylers of Vujovic, Espinosa, and McDermott, all finished the relays off and the Ephwomen touched 1-3-6.
The Ephwomen closed the final meet of the semester with lots of season bests. They head to Fort Lauderdale, FL for their annual training trip and resume competition January 11th, 2025 at Amherst College against the Mammoths.
