Full, live meet results available here.
WORCHESTER, MASS. – The University of New Hampshire entered Saturday atop the standings through seven events, due in large part to winning both the 500-yard freestyle and 200-yard freestyle relay Friday evening. Day three proved to be a huge moving day, as the night’s event consisted of seven final scoring events.
The day began with the 400-yard individual medley preliminaries. New Hampshire’s Katie Mann finsihed with the top time to enter the finals, touching the wall at 4:14.26. Kayla Lilly of UMBC was the second place finisher, tapping in nearly fourteen seconds behind at 4:28.11.
The 100-yard butterfly prelims saw three Maine Black Bears make it into the evening’s final, however it Vermont’s junior Andie Blaser who swam the fastest. Blaser finished the fly in 56.02, but the placement within the top five was incredibly close; the second through fifth place finishers all finished within one second of Blaser.
New Hampshire’s freshmen Elzaveta Baykova took first in the 200-yard freestyle preliminary with a time of 1:49.42. Byakova edged out her teammate Oneida Cooper who took second (1:51.17), and UMBC freshmen Alissa Caulfield (1:52.26).
After setting a new championship record yesterday in the 200-yard individual medley final (1:59.10), UMBC sophomore Emily Escobedo decided to add another notch to her belt in the100-yard breaststroke preliminary. Escobedo swam the race in 1:01.56, besting the previous conference championship record that was set last year by Maine’s Naja Harvey at 1:01.90. In Saturday’s prelims, Harvey placed third, finishing in 1:03.01.
In the 100-yard backstroke preliminaries, New Hampshire swam the fastest two times. Senior Nicole Anderson swam the swiftest (56.66), and sophomore Sarah Broderick wasn’t far behind (56.79).
After winning the one-meter dive on day one of the 2015 America East Swimming & Diving Championship, Binghamton senior Imani Williams was looking to complete the sweep on Saturday. In the prelims, Vermont’s Maggie Preston of Vermont took the top-qualifying spot in the three-meter; and her finish was paralleled in the final. The Catamount junior registered a winning score of 256.95, her best this season.
In the 100-yard butterfly final, Blaser improved upon her prelim time and won the event in 55.79. Jessica Harper of New Hampshire shaved more than a second off of her qualifying time to finish as runner-up (56.26), and Taylor Sharp came in third for the Maine Black Bears (56.34).
New Hampshire saw their foreign freshman set a new America East championship record in the 200-freestyle. Baykova, a Moscow, Russia native, won the event in 1:47.48, beating the old mark of 1:47.51 set by Vermont’s Colleen Clark in 2009. Cooper, last year’s event champion, came in second place (1:51.31), and UMBC freshman Alissa Caulfield took third (1:52.00).
The 100-yard breaststroke was dominated from start to finish by UMBC’s stud sophomore. Escobar broke her own championship record she set in her qualifying time, this time touching the end wall in 1:01.01. Binghamton senior Corinne Zotter finished in second place (1:02.00), and Harvey (1:02.83) wrapped up the top three for the Black Bears.
For a brief moment, the UMBC took the lead in the 2015 America East Swimming & Diving championship as a result of the 100-yard backstroke final. While Sarah Broderick won the event for the Wildcats with a time of 56.58, the Retrievers saw Lauren Day’s second place finish (56.74), along with Hannah Sutherland (57.20) and Catherine Frediani’s (57.45) fifth and sixth place momentarily place the Retrievers four points ahead of the Wildcats.
New Hampshire would regain the championship lead in the last race of the day, the 400-yard medley relay. The quartet of Broderick, Mann, Harper and Baykova won the event with a time of 3:44.32, two second faster than the runner up Retrievers of UMBC (3:46.33).
At the end of day three, and through 14 events, here are the team rankings:
1. University of New Hampshire: 534
2. UMBC: 532
3. University of Vermont: 460
4. Binghamton University: 373
5. University of Maine: 298
Tomorrow, the final day of the 2015 America East Swimming & Diving Championship begins at 10:00 AM with the 200-yard backstroke preliminaries. Watch the conclusion of the championship on Americaeast.TV, and follow the live stats at championship central on AmericaEast.com.
Recap courtesy America East Communications