Following the loss the Blue Jays swim team received during their Senior Day meet against Washington College, Elizabethtown College’s swim teams prepared to take on the York College Spartans at the Alumni Pool on Jan. 25th.
The day’s first race was the women’s 200-yard medley relay, and the two teams were immediately neck-and-neck. Etown junior Hailey Poulos and York first-year Ryann Price refused to let the other steal the lead in the beginning. Etown got ahead of York as the second swimmer for each team dove in. Blue Jay senior Gracie Harding established a lead that the other York swimmers couldn’t break, and the Jays won with a time of 2:00.47 against the Spartans’ time of 2:07.95.
The second event—the men’s 200-yard medley relay—also favored the Blue Jays. Etown senior Franky Swain and York sophomore Alex Daniele started the event with no clear winner for roughly half the race. It wasn’t until the third swimmer on the Jays’ team– senior AJ West—dove in that they grabbed a hold of the lead. The Jays finished with a time of 1:40.87, with the Spartans in second place finishing roughly four seconds later with their time of 1:44.55.
The Spartans countered in the following event, the women’s 1000-yard freestyle. York first-year Annika Doutrich got full laps ahead of everyone else by the time the event ended. Doutrich finished with a time of 10:58.15, nearly a full minute ahead of second place—Etown senior Clare Garbarini—and their time of 11:43.24.
The Spartans won the following three events before the Jays earned another victory in the women’s 50-yard freestyle. Harding finished the event in 25.63 seconds, well ahead of second place—York first-year Annie Custis—and their time of 26.08 seconds.
However, the Spartans would continue their winning streak intermittently throughout the rest of the event. Much like the meet between Etown and Washington, the York swimmers in lane three seemed like an unstoppable force, and the Jays didn’t have an immovable object to stop them. They could only outplay the Spartans with their equally unstoppable forces.
The Blue Jays grabbed victory away from the Spartans in some events. Etown junior Austin Smith finished two seconds ahead of York in the men’s 200-yard individual medley, Harding won the women’s 100-yard freestyle by roughly one second, and first-year Barron Bishop scored one last win for the Jays in the men’s 100-yard breaststroke.
While the event still ended in a loss for the Jays, it was not a landslide victory for the Spartans. For the men’s events, the final score was 79-126. The distance between the Jays and the Spartans was smaller for the women’s events, with a final score of 81-121.
After a meet against Juniata in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania on Jan. 25, the Blue Jays will be heading to the Landmark Conference Championships in Baltimore, Maryland. The event will take place from Feb. 13 to Feb. 16.
