Duke Women Pick Up a Pair of Home Victories over South Carolina and Harvard

The South Carolina Gamecocks and Harvard Crimson traveled to Durham, North Carolina on Saturday for a co-ed tri-meet with Duke. The women’s meets were tight, with Duke defeating Harvard 154-146 and South Carolina 165-135, and Harvard edging South Carolina 154-146. Complete results.

The Blue Devils (Jessie Sutherland-25.81, Ashleigh Shanley-29.39, Leah Goldman-24.10, and Maddie Rusch-22.82) got out front early with a 1:42.12 victory in the 200 medley relay, 3.7 second ahead of Harvard (Danielle Lee, Stephanie Ferrell, Kendall Crawford, and Gabby Sims) and 4.2 ahead of South Carolina (Ashleigh Ferguson, Ellen Johnson, Heather Merritt, and Meredith Vay).

Duke captured six first-place finishes out of 12 swimming events. The Blue Devils were particularly strong in the butterfly events: freshman Isa Paez led a 1-2-3 sweep in the 200 and a 1-2 finish in the 100. In the longer distance, Paez (2:00.24) led by over a second at the 100, then closed with, by far, the fastest second half in the field. Teammate Brittany Friese (2:04.13) was second, while Colleen Wixted (2:05.21) touched third. Paez led wire to wire in the 100 as well, finishing in 55.38. Duke’s Linsay Cooper (56.58) took second, while Harvard’s Crawford (57.06) slipped in ahead of Wixted (57.49) for third. Mairyn Branaman of South Carolina (57.92) wasn’t far behind the lead pack.

Blue Devil freshman Goldman was another two-event winner, claiming victories in the 200 free and 200 IM. Goldman went 1:50.69 in the free, coming in a half-second ahead of South Carolina’s Vay (1:51.03). In the IM, Goldman got out to an early lead after the backstroke, and held on for a 2:03.17 win. Harvard’s Geordie Enoch touched second in 2:03.82. Goldman added a second-place finish in the 100 free to her day’s accomplishments.

Duke logged two more wins from sophomores Sutherland (100 back) and Rusch (50 free). Sutherland’s 54.98 won the back by a 1.1-second margin over Harvard’s Kristina Li. Duke’s Hanna House (56.83) placed third ahead of the Gamecocks’ Ferguson (57.25). In the 50 free, Rusch went 23.34 to win by a half-second. Harvard’s Chan was runner-up, and Chelsea Ye of Duke touched just in front of Vay from South Carolina for third.

Chan exacted her revenge in the 100 free, getting the win with a 51.35 to 51.45 touch over Duke’s Goldman. Her Crimson teammate Lee won an exciting race in the 200 back. Lee was out at the 100 in 57.98, almost two seconds faster than the rest of the field. She held on for the win with 1:59.67, despite a strong back half from South Carolina’s Mitchell (2:00.81), who came from behind to beat Harvard’s Li (2:00.98) for second place.

Ferrell earned matching wins for the Crimson in the 100 and 200 breaststrokes. She clocked a 1:03.70 in the 100 to beat Shanley of Duke (1:04.65) and Johnson of South Carolina (1:05.00). She then went 2:19.47 in the 200, edging Kersten Dirrane of South Carolina (2:19.68) and Enoch of Harvard (2:19.72) in an exciting finish.

South Carolina showed prowess in the distance free and diving events. Victoria Mitchell won both the 1000 (9:59.66) and 500 free (4:56.39). In the latter, she made up a .55-second deficit at the 450 wall where she was trailing teammate Sarah Smith, and came away with the win 4:56.39 to 4:56.63. Mitchell won the 1000 free by a comfortable margin over Harvard’s Sherry Liu (10:11.85) and Duke’s Verity Abel (10:15.53).

Patti Kranz led the Gamecocks’ 1-2-3 sweep in 3-meter diving with 295.70 points. Lauren Lamendola, who was runner-up in that event, won the 1-meter board over teammate Julia Vincent, 329.70 to 328.45.

Harvard (Chan, Daniela Johnson, Crawford, and Lee) won the final 400 free relay, earning just enough points to defeat South Carolina, but not enough to catch Duke.

Final Scores:

Duke University 154 – 146 Harvard University
Duke University 165 – 135 University of South Carolina
Harvard University 154 – 146 University of South Carolina