Courtesy: Duquesne Athletics
PITTSBURGH – The Duquesne women’s swimming and diving team returned to action Friday evening and Saturday morning for an intrasquad meet at Towers Pool.
The Dukes competed in 17 different events across the two-day meet highlighted by a pair of pool record performances on Friday night.
Duquesne’s 400-yard freestyle relay team of Hanna Everhart (Bloomsburg, Pa. / Bloomsburg Area), Meaghan Doyle (Derwood, Md. / Madeira), Sydney Sherman (Erie, Pa. / Villa Maria Academy) and Leah Reisker (Gainesville, Fla. / F.W. Buchholz) posted a Towers Pool record time of 3:33.06 in thev event. In addition, freshman Laura Goettler (Butler, Pa. / Butler) recorded a pool record mark of 2:18.01 in the 200-yard breaststroke for the Dukes.
That was one of Goettler’s four first-place showings at the meet to go along with pacing the 50-yard breaststroke (30.36), 100-yard breaststroke (1:05.07) and 200-yard individual medley (2:06.50) for Duquesne.
Reisker, also a freshman, registered three first-place individual finishes on the weekend in the 50-yard freestyle (24.19), 50-yard backstroke (26.66) as well as 50-yard butterfly (26.39).
Everhart added first-place performances in the 200-yard freestyle (1:53.50) and 100-yard freestyle (51.96) while also anchoring the first-place 400-yard medley relay team (3:53.66) along with Reagan Linkous (Morgantown, W.Va. / Morgantown Christian Academy), Madison Dickert (Media, Pa. / Penncrest) and Anna Skapoulas (Rocky River, Ohio / Rocky River).
Audrey Steen (San Pedro, Calif. / San Pedro) paced the 100-yard butterfly (56.67) and 200-yard backstroke (2:04.92) for the Dukes.
Also earning first-place finishes for Duquesne were Emma Menzer (Newark, Del. / Newark Charter) in the 400-yard IM (4:26.86), Molly Brennan (Pittsford, N.Y. / Pittsford Sutherland) in the 500-yard freestyle (5:04.17), Katelyn Harkrader (Hatfield, Pa. / North Penn) in the 100-yard backstroke (58.15) and Sophia Perez (Chapel Hill, N.C. / East Chapel Hill) in the 200-yard butterfly (2:07.86).
Head coach David Sheets: “I was pretty happy with how the ladies embraced racing again. For most of them it has been eight months to get up on the blocks and compete. Each individual had unique training circumstances during this ongoing pandemic and to see them going off the blocks in any form of a meet was very rewarding for all of us. As we look forward we will continue to build on this past weekend, win each day and do our best to take care of each other.”