The Caltech women’s swim & dive team opened the 2017 SCIAC Championships with record-setting performances in both events contested on Wednesday night. Results With the 200 Free Relay record already in tow from the regular season, the Beavers aimed to set three more this weekend (the shorthanded squad will not contest the 400 Medley) and […]
The Caltech women’s swim & dive team opened the 2017 SCIAC Championships with record-setting performances in both events contested on Wednesday night.
With the 200 Free Relay record already in tow from the regular season, the Beavers aimed to set three more this weekend (the shorthanded squad will not contest the 400 Medley) and got off to the perfect start. The 200 Medley Relay team of sophomores Brittany Percin (Lake Tahoe, Calif. / Stanford Online) and Gemma Takahashi (San Jose, Calif. / Leland) and freshmen Elisabeth Gallmeier (Oak Ridge, Tenn. / Oak Ridge) and Angelina Pan (Toronto, Canada / Havergal Coll.) started things off with a 1:57.40 – the first sub-two-minute time in program history, shattering the former record of 2:00.37 set in 2003. Takahashi led off with the third-fastest backstroke split in the pool and handed it off to Gallmeier for the second leg. Pan followed with a butterfly split that had Caltech well clear of the needed pace to break the mark, leaving Percin to anchor on freestyle. The two-time 2016 All-SCIAC sophomore posted a blistering 24.16 – the program’s fastest 50 split in history by more than half a second – to leave no doubt whether the record had been broken.
The same quartet later competed in the 800 Free Relay and accomplished the same feat, chopping off a whopping 20 seconds from the previous mark to clock in at 8:14.38. Percin split well below the two-minute mark on the anchor leg, while Takahashi came in just over that threshold as Pan and Gallmeier split considerably lower than any previous third and fourth legs have in years past.
Senior Zofii Kaczmarek (New York, N.Y. / Stuyvesant) got her final SCIAC Championships started earlier in the day, placing 14th in a strong field on the 1-meter diving board. That position earned her five points toward the Beavers’ team total of 53 – three more than last year’s team had compiled after Day One.
The Thursday meet schedule consists of the 500 Free, 200 IM, 50 Free, women’s 3-meter prelims and men’s 3-meter finals.
