Brewers Split Tri-Meet With Mount Holyoke, Trinity

SOUTH HADLEY, Mass. – On Saturday afternoon, the Vassar College women's swimming & diving team resumed its 2018-19 schedule with a tri-meet against Mount Holyoke and Trinity at the Mount Holyoke College Natatorium. The Brewers defeated the host Lyons, 186-108, while falling to Trinity by a 162.5-133.5 count. Vassar had the overall winner in eight different events, with Jesse Ecklund(Missoula, MT), Brynn Lautenbacher (Dunwoody, GA) and Hayley Schultz(Fayetteville, NY) earning two individual victories apiece. The Brewers also notched five second-place finishes. Ecklund's first win came in the 200 yard freestyle, where she out-touched Trinity's Zory Matlashewski by 0.1 seconds for the victory. Her time was 2:00.22. Ecklund also took first in the 200 backstroke (2:09.40), while her personal-best clocking of 2:13.69 in the 200 individual medley was good for second place. Lautenbacher, meanwhile, swept the butterfly events. She notched a 59.91-second clocking in the 100 butterfly and swam the 200 butterfly in 2:15.08. Schultz also earned a sweep in her specialty—the breaststroke. Her time was 1:09.92 in the 100 breaststroke, and she led a Vassar 1-2 showing with a 2:32.29 clocking in the 200 breaststroke. Stephanie Kaplan (Bellmore, NY) was the second-place finisher in 2:34.99. That quartet opened the meet by winning the 200 medley relay with a time of 1:54.55. Angharad Healey (Summit, NJ) (11:16.58) and Kael Ragnini(Barrington, IL) (11:25.45) then went 1-2 in the 1000 freestyle, the first individual event. Healey also took second in the 500 freestyle (5:26.01) and third in the 200 butterfly (2:18.49). Rachel Yang (Minocqua, WI) had a pair of third-place finishes in the 100 backstroke (1:06.38) and 200 backstroke (2:21.41), and Violet Witchel(Durango, CO) captured third place in the 50 freestyle (26.43). She later joined with Kaplan, Lautenbacher and Meg Harrington (Wilbraham, MA) on Vassar's 400 freestyle relay squad that took second overall in 3:51.42. In addition, Hannah Zawacki (San Jose, CA), previously just a 1-meter diver, successfully competed on both the 1-meter and 3-meter boards for the first time in her career. "We had many highlights today, bouncing back well from the training trip return last night," Head Coach Lisl Prater-Lee said. "We know we have some things we can improve, and I'm excited that we have a chance to work together next week to see more of that come to fruition. We have a good group that trained very well last week in Florida and showed up today to put their best efforts forward." Next weekend, the Brewers will participate in the final Seven Sisters Championships at Smith College. Competition gets underway at 10 a.m. on Saturday and concludes on Sunday.