Navy Women Beat UMBC, 146-97

ANNAPOLIS, Maryland, October 28. THE Navy women's swimming and diving team broke five Lejeune Hall records on its way to posting a 146-97 victory over UMBC Saturday afternoon in Annapolis. The victory keeps the Mids undefeated through five meets this year, while the Retrievers fall to 1-1 on the young season.

"Our team really performed well today," said Navy head swimming coach John Morrison. "We had great swims across the board. Records aside, our team as a whole put in an amazing meet. I was excited by the emotion and effort our team displayed. It was an exciting day for our team and we all are proud of their efforts."

The meet began with UMBC topping Navy by one-tenth of a second in the 400-meter medley relay. The foursome of Agnes Stanislawska, Tina Cantwell, Kate Chialastri and Lindsey Engler posted a time of 4:23.89 in winning the event, which broke the pool standard of 4:23.95 set by Navy two years ago.

From there, however, Navy took control of the meet by winning 10 of the remaining 12 events contested on the day.

Navy's run of victories began with Tara Chapmon (Fr., Virginia Beach, Va) recording a time of 9:22.78 to win the 800-meter freestyle by nearly seven seconds, with Sarah Dorenkott (Fr., Hudson, Ohio) next edging Meghan Sackett to win the 200-meter freestyle. Dorenkott posted a pool record time of 2:04.59 to top Sackett by 16-hundredth of a second. The previous pool standard in the event was 2:04.71, set three years ago by Army's Shannon Garrett.

Navy's Thuy-Mi Dinh (Fr., Anaheim, Calif.) won Navy's third-straight race by recording a time of 26.46 to win the 50-meter freestyle, then Kelly Zahalka (So., Richmond, Va.) made it four wins in a row as she won the 200-meter individual medley by nearly three seconds with a time of 2:21.86.

After Ashley Houghton won the first individual event of the day for UMBC when she won the one-meter springboard diving event, Mallory Dietrich (Fr., Pittsburgh, Pa.) and Dinh both won the next two events in the pool, with both setting new Lejeune Hall standards in the process. Dietrich won the 200-meter butterfly by nearly five seconds with a clocking of 2:17.10, then Dinh won the 100-meter free with a time of 57.69. Dietrich's 200 fly time topped the pool record clocking of 2:18.70 set by Penn State's Katie Anderson in 1998, while Dinh's time broke the standard of 57.92 set by teammate Zahalka last year.

Stanislawska would win the 200-meter backstroke for UMBC, but that would be the last victory of the day for the Retrievers. Navy closed the individual event portion of the meet with Chapmon winning the 400-meter freestyle, Katie Griffin (Jr., Ellicott City, Md.) winning on the three-meter springboard and Dietrich setting a new pool record and NCAA 'B' cut qualifying time of 2:32.47 in winning the 200-meter breaststroke. Dietrich's new record smashed the standard of 2:36.30 set by Navy's Julia Mason in 1995.

One week after setting a new Lejeune Hall record in the 400-meter freestyle relay against Johns Hopkins, the Mids posted a new record time of 3:53.85 in winning the event against the Retrievers. Navy's record-setting team consisted of Dinh, Rachel Gray (Jr., Latrobe, Pa.), Zahalka and Dorenkott.

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