The Elizabethtown College women’s swim team opened the 2014-2015 season when they hosted York College (Pa.) on Saturday. The Blue Jays took home four individual victories on the day but fell short against the Spartans. York came to Alumni Pool and defeated Etown 112-87 in the season-opener for both teams.
Fifth-year OT student Kimberly Cosgrove enjoyed a successful opening meet against the Spartans, taking home two first places. The first of her back-to-back first place finishes came in the 1,000-yard freestyle where Cosgrove won by over 33 seconds in a time of 11:31.21.
Cosgrove followed her first place finish in the 1,000-yard freestyle by taking first in the next event, the 200-yard freestyle. She defeated York’s Kate McConaghy by 1.54 seconds in the 200-yard freestyle event. Cosgrove finished the day with half of the Blue Jays’ wins against York. She also finished second in the 500-freestyle with a time of 5:43.66 to go along with her two first place finishes.
The Blue Jays narrowly missed a fifth first-place finish against the Spartans when they finished second in the 200-medley relay, just 0.21 seconds behind York’s winning relay. The team of juniors Bonnie Lisk, Amanda Long, Ashley Dispenziere and senior Tara Deisher touched in at a time of 2:03.11.
Lisk went on to win the 100-yard backstroke in a time of 1:07.97. Long took home one first place finish against York by winning the 100-yard breaststroke in 1:13.61. First-year Dru Schneider placed second in the 100-yard breaststroke to give the Blue Jays a one-two finish in the event. Dispenziere finished second in the 100-fly with a time of 1:08.43.
The women’s swim team (0-1) will be back in action on Saturday, Nov. 1, in Selinsgrove, Pa. to face Susquehanna University in their first Landmark Conference meet in the program’s history. Susquehanna is the four-time defending Landmark Conference Champion in Swimming & Diving. The Crusaders were picked as the favorites to win the Landmark Conference title again this season.
This year’s team has 15 returning swimmers from last year’s team that went 5-7. The women’s swim team was picked to finish 7th in the Landmark Conference Swimming & Diving Preseason Poll earlier this month.
