Grinnell, IA – The Principia College women's swimming team traveled to Grinnell College for the Pioneer Classic invitational swim meet on Friday and Saturday. It was their final meet of the fall and were hoping to swim well and conclude the fall on a high note. That they did. The women finished in 9
th place against a very strong and deep field of teams but they rose to the level of competition and walked away with 15 "Best" swims with every member contributing at least 2 "bests". While not every swim was a best, there was lots of improvements and thus it leaves the team feeling good and looking forward to the rest of the season.
Friday Night
The first session started on Friday night with the 200 Free relay. Led by 3 "best" swims the women swam to a 1:59.31. Leading off, sophomore
Kannon Gill swam a season best time of 34.47. Next up fellow sophomore
Kassie Christensen swam an in-season lifetime best time of 28.31. Junior captain
Camille Abadie continued with a season best of her own in 28.65. Freshman
Avery Hanson finished it off with a 27.88. It was a great way to start things off.
Next up, junior
Heather Savoye swam a lifetime best 6:41.93 in her 500 Free. The 50 Free saw two more "bests" as Gill swan another season best in the 50 with a 34.44 and Christensen swam a 28.20 for a new lifetime best time. The session concluded with the 400 Medley relay where Abadie, Savoye, Christensen and Hanson combined for a 4:48.74 which included two more "best" times. Christensen continued to swim well as she split a 1:13.31 for her 100 Fly leg which was a new lifetime best time. Hanson then anchored the relay with a new season best 1:00.11 time.
It was a good start to the first session of the meet with an expectation of more to come over the next two sessions.
Saturday Morning
The morning session started with the 200 Medley relay where Christensen continued her fast swimming helping the relay to a 2:15.36 time with her lifetime best 50 Fly split of 30.38. Later in the session, Christensen added her 5
th "best" for the meet with her 1:14.44 100 Fly time for a new in-season lifetime best time. Savoye added a second "best" swim for her with her 2:24.36 200 Free swim which was a new season best.
While the morning session wasn't as successful as the previous evening, the times being swum, even if not "bests", were close to them and were being swum better technically. So there was continue improvements there.
Saturday Evening
The final session of the meet saw Abadie start off for the women with a new season best in her 200 Back with a 2:21.12. it was also the top placing at the meet for the women with a 9
th place finish in the event. The next event – the 100 Free – saw two more "bests" and a big breakthrough. Christensen was now 6 for 6 in earning "bests" when she went an in-season lifetime best time of 1:05.33. Hanson also added a "best" with her season-best time of 59.03 which was her first time under a minute!
The women wrapped up the meet with a strong 400 Free relay, swimming another 2 "best" times. Abadie lead off with a 1:04.80 for a new season best time. She was followed by Savoye in 1:03.31, then Christensen with a 1:06.56 for her 7
th "best" time, this time a season best. Hanson then anchored in 1:00.27.
In a meet this strong and deep the women could have been intimidated but they came out and swam strongly the whole meet and brought home those 15 "best" swims. Numerous more were very close to "best" swims, so on the whole the women swam very well.
The women will now swim one more week before heading off for winter break. They will next be back in action on Saturday, Jan 15 against Maryville University at 1p where they will compete in the unusual King/Queen of the Stroke meet format.
