Radcliffe Swimming Team Takes Fourth at Easterns

The Radcliffe swimming team finished fourth in the Women's Eastern Intercollegiate and Diving Championships earlier this month, and five Radcliffe swimmers qualified for the national championships at Arizona State.

"We've had good teams before and we've always done well in the local league," Alice G. McCabe, assistant coordinator of activities, said. "But the fact that we did so well at the Eastern level of competition indicates that this is the best swimming team in our history"

Radcliffe placed ???? two and one-half points behind the best team for the Easterns, Southern Connecticut. The two top finishers. West Chester State and Springfield, both have physical education majors and fielded very large teams. West Chester State finished second in the national finals last year.

"The qualifying times of our six swimmers were comparable to the times in the national finals, so I'm optimistic," McCabe said. Radcliffe's strongest national entry is its 200 yard freestyle relay team which was timed in 1:50.8 at the Easterns.

Roann Costin and Connie Cervilla qualified in two individual events as well as swimming on the freestyle relay. Costin finished third in the 200 yard freestyle and fourth in the 100 yard freestyle. Cervilla overcame the handicap of an outside lane to take a third in the 50 yard butterfly and a sixth in the 100 yard butterfly.

"It's natural to assume that the West Coast teams will be stronger than the Eastern ones." McCabe said, "but the times from the Eastern and Western regionals were almost identical."

Using only five swimmers, Radcliffe had the smallest team of the top Eastern finishers.