Ben Blotner
Contributing Writer
The men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams kicked off their seasons at the Kenyon College Relay on Saturday, Oct. 19, with the men’s team placing fourth out of five teams and the women’s team finishing third.
Each event featured at least an “A,” “B” and “C” team from each school, with some events featuring even more teams. In the women’s 200-yard medley relay, Wooster’s A team of Hannah Langer ’21, Molly Likins ’22, Anne Bowers ’21 and Brooke Brown ’21 took seventh place out of 26 teams. Kenyon College, however, won the event, boasting the top three teams and five of the top six. On the men’s side, the Fighting Scots’ teams finished 16th, 20th, 22nd and 24th, with Kenyon winning this event as well.
The 200-yard backstroke relay saw the women’s teams finish ninth, 13th and 14th, as Kenyon was again the victor. The men’s group of Trey Schopen ’20, Graham Letkeman ’22, Eli Samuelson ’20 and Josh Gluck ’21 earned sixth place, but Kenyon continued its hot streak with another win.
In the 200-yard breaststroke relay, the women shined as the team of Brown, Madison Whitman ’21, Molly Likins and her sister Heidi Likins ’21 took third place. Wooster’s other groups finished sixth, seventh and eighth as the women fared well overall. The men’s teams finished seventh, 10th and 12th; Kenyon again had the top team on both sides.
Carnegie Mellon University finally interrupted Kenyon’s dominance in the women’s 500-yard crescendo relay, with its A team finishing just ahead of Kenyon’s top group. Wooster’s teams took 10th, 13th, 17th and 18th place out of the 22 teams, with the men’s team getting a similar result at 13th, 18th and 19th.
The women’s team turned in a solid performance on the 200-yard butterfly relay; the A group of Bowers, Lexi Riley-DiPaolo ’21, Mia Chen ’22 and Brown captured sixth place, while the B, C and D groups placed 12th, 13th and 14th, respectively. As for the men’s event, the Fighting Scots placed 13th, 16th and 18th.
Nell Kacmarek ’20, Whitman and Kay Wetmore ’23 led Wooster’s women in the 3×500-yard freestyle relay, earning fifth place out of 10 teams. The Scots’ only male team in this event finished seventh out of nine overall groups for the men.
On the women’s side, Kenyon continued to be the team to beat; the Ladies’ A team won the 400-yard IM relay, with Wooster’s teams finishing eighth, 11th, 12th and 14th. Kenyon, however, was finally unseated on the other side, as it was the Carnegie Mellon men’s turn to upend the Lords. The Fighting Scots took 10th, 15th and 18th place.
In the 200-yard freestyle relay, Molly Likins, Riley-DiPaolo, Bowers and Brown continued to be standouts for the women, turning in a strong effort that earned them fifth place out of 22 teams. Carnegie Mellon was again victorious in the men’s event, as Wooster’s teams placed 16th, 18th and 20th.
Perhaps the highlight of the day was the final event, the mixed 200-yard medley relay. Competing against Kenyon, Ohio Northern University and Ohio Wesleyan University, the Scots put together a mixed men and women’s team of Gluck, Molly Likins, Schopen and Brown. This group finished with a time of 1:45.41 and earned 10 points, good for second out of the four schools.