BRIEF: Women's Swimming and Diving Sends Group to ECAC Championships

For a change of pace from the recent Ivy League action, a squad of athletes from Harvard women’s’ swimming and diving trekked to Annapolis, MD for the ECAC championships.

The Crimson competed against old and new opponents, including Navy, UVA, Penn, and Columbia in the open championship meet. The five Harvard competitors totaled 130 points, good for 11th place.

A set of notable performances came from freshman Valerie Yoshimura. With a time of 2:02.93, Yoshimura took third in the 200 IM. She also took eighth in the 400 IM, touching the wall in 4:29.20. The Pennsylvania native also took sixth in the 200 fly with a time of 2:03.60.

Freshman Claire Pinson put up competitive times as well, taking bronze in the 500 free in 4:51.65. In the 400 IM, her 4:22.83 time was good enough for ninth. She also took seventh in the 200 fly, behind Yoshimura.

From the Crimson’s veterans, junior Summer Schmitt competed in a variety of events, showing her skills in events long and short, in a number of different strokes. She took 29th in the preliminaries of the 500 free and 18th in the 100 back. She also took 52nd in 54.61 in the 100 free, adding to the variety of events the junior competed in.

Another veteran, junior Savannah Butler took 15th in the B-final of the 100 breast, with a time of 1:08.25. She also took 15th in the 200 breast, finishing in 2:26.59.

Freshman Holly Christensen also competed, taking 12th in the 50 free, her time of 23.95 edging out the next competitor by 0.04 seconds. She also placed 33rd in the 200 free preliminaries and 41st in the 100 free.

Harvard also competed in several relays. The quad of Yoshimura, Christensen, Schmitt, and Butler took ninth in the 200 medley relay in 1:47.81. In the 400 free relay, Pinson took Butler’s place in the relay team, taking sixth in 3:31.69.

—Staff writer Isabel DeLaura can be reached at idelaura@college.harvard.edu.