Radcliffe Swimmers Overwhelm UNH

Eighteen Radcliffe swimmers and divers overcame a 50-member University of New Hampshire team Friday afternoon, 64-40. In a surprising first-meet performance, the team members qualified a 200-yard freestyle relay and a 50-yard individual butterfly event for the National Intercollegiate meet to be held at Penn State this March.

Depth

"It is very unusual to do this well in the first meet of the season," Alice G. McCabe, Radcliffe swim coach said yesterday. "We weren't sure whether we had enough depth, but we were extremely pleased with our performance on Friday."

Standouts in the meet Friday were swim team captain RoAnn Costin who placed first in the 100- and 200-yard freestyle events and senior Connie Cervilla who won the 50-yard butterfly and 100-yard freestyle competitions. Costin's time in the 200 qualified her for the Eastern Inter-Collegiate meet in January. Cervilla was the only swimmer to qualify an individual event for both the national and Eastern inter-collegiate competitions to be held later this year.

Strong Freestyle

"We were strong in freestyle and the relays as we had expected. We won every event except breast stroke and got two thirds in that," Costin said Sunday.

"The girls we hoped would place high placed high consistently," Costin said. "we had to put freestylers in strokes they did not normally swim, but even so, those swimmers did extremely well."

One of those swimmers was senior Julie Bradley who swam the 100-yard individual medley event for the first time competitively Friday afternoon. Bradley placed first in the competition with a 1:13.2 time. She also finished second in the 100- and 50-yard freestyle events.

Other swimmers putting in strong performances were sophomores Kris Krendl and Maureen Murphy in the 200-yard freestyle and sophomore Jeannie Guyton who placed second in the 100-yard backstroke competition. Senior Nancy Sato brought in a first in the 50-yard backstroke event.

Divers

Divers also put in an excellent showing Friday at the UNH meet, with Sato taking a first and junior Laverne Sergeant a second in the one meter diving competitions.

"Our divers look really strong, and are very encouraging for this year. The University of New Hampshire told us we were really out of their league," Costin said.