Vermont vs. Navy

ANNAPOLIS, Maryland, January 15. NINE different Midshipmen won an individual event to help the Navy women's swimming and diving team post a 211-89 victory over Vermont Saturday afternoon at Lejeune Hall in Annapolis. The win improves Navy's record on the year to 9-0, while Vermont's record fell to 8-4 this season with the loss.

"It was a good meet for us," said Navy head coach John Morrison. "It has been some time since we competed in a meet (Navy's last meet was a 240.5-59.5 victory over Army on Dec. 9), so it was good to get some of the rust out of us. Our depth today was very strong. That's what we will need next month when we compete for the Patriot League Championship. How our depth goes will go a long way to determining our result at the meet. Today was a step in the right direction for our development as we start to point toward the league event."

Navy as a team won 13 events on the day. Highlighting the individual efforts for the Mids were Toni Paruso (So., Savannah, Ga.), who won a pair of events and nearly broke her own school standard in the 100-m butterfly, and Laura Gorinski (So., Greensburg, Pa.), who also picked up two individual race victories on the day.

The Mids started the meet by winning the 200-m medley relay in a time of 1:59.39. The foursome of Olivia Kosaka (Fr., Burien, Wash.), Laura Gorinski (So., Greensburg, Pa.), Paruso and Kellie Darmody (So., Charlotte, N.C.) recorded a time of 1:59.39 to better the second-place finishing Vermont team by nearly three seconds.

One of the more dominating victories of the meet took place in the first individual event as Vermont's Kailey Gardner posted a time of 17:19.31 to win the 1500-m freestyle by 22 seconds. Her clocking was just five seconds off of the Lejeune Hall record of 17:14.04 set by Navy's Heidi Fearon 15 years ago.
Navy's Bryn Moriarty (So., Chesapeake, Va.) would next edge teammate Danielle Reminger (So., Wheaton, Ill.) for the victory in the 200-m freestyle (2:09.35-2:09.81), but Vermont's Kate Weaver followed by recording a time of 1:04.99 to defeat Kosaka by two seconds in the 100-m backstroke. The Mids also placed third and fifth in the latter event to build a 45-29 lead over the Catamounts.

Navy was then able to separate itself from Vermont by placing first, second and third in five of the next eight events. The span started with Gorinski leading a 1-2-3 Navy finish in the 100-m breaststroke with a time of 1:13.93, and was followed by Gina Grabowski (Fr., Lawrenceville, N.J.) winning the 200-m butterfly in a time of 2:24.11. After Paruso's time of 26.46 won her the 50-m free over teammates Allison Ranzau (Sr., Alpharetta, Ga.) and Darmody, Jordyn Nicholl (So., Acworth, Ga.) won the one-meter springboard diving event with a score of 232.80. Hollis Capuano (So., Wallingford, Conn.), Colleen Ranzau (Fr., Annapolis, Md.) and Daphne Williams (So., Lebanon, Ill.), respectively, would next claim the top three spots for the Mids in the 100-m freestyle.

Capuano's clocking of 58.76 gave her the event win, which was followed by Darmody beating Weaver to the wall by a little more than one second (2:18.30-2:29.68) in the 200-m backstroke. The run ended for the Mids with Gorinski (2:38.34), Randolph and Tessa Snow (Sr., Hamlin, N.Y.) placing first, second and third, respectively, in the 200-m breaststroke and Nina Vivadelli (Fr., Richmond, Va.) leading a 1-2-3 Navy finish in the 400-m freestyle with her posting of 4:29.86.

Paruso joined Gorinski as double individual event winners on the day when her time of 1:01.88 gave her the victory in the 100-m fly by over four seconds. That time was narrowly behind her own school record clocking of 1:01.79. Lauren Colby accrued 222.98 points to win the three-meter diving event for the Catamounts before Randolph closed out the individual event portion of the meet by winning the 400-m individual medley in a time of 5:00.99. Randolph's time ranks second in Navy history to Kelly Zahalka's clocking of 4:57.00.

Navy concluded the meet by having its 400-m freestyle relay team of Reminger, Ranzau, Darmody and Capuano post a time of 3:58.14 to win the event by almost five seconds.

The Mids will return to Lejeune Hall one week from today (Jan. 22) as they, along with the Navy men's team, will play host to Yale in another 12 Noon start.

The above article is a press release submitted to Swimming World Magazine. It has been posted in its entirety without editing. Swimming World offers all outlets the chance to reach our audience by contacting us at Newsmaster@swimmingworldmagazine.com. However, Swimming World reserves the right to choose what material is posted.

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