After just their second meet of the year, the Hopkins swim team is looking toward another highly successful season. This past Friday both the men and the women competed at Division I University of Maryland, where Hopkins defeated Howard University but lost to Maryland.
The women won 142-56 over Howard with some top times from many of the Lady Jays.
"The women swam very well against a very strong Maryland team that won the ACC Championship last year," said head coach George Kennedy. Maryland defeated Hopkins 154-68.
Senior Katie Herbst swam the 1000-yard freestyle in 10:38.
"A majority of the swims at the meet were great times for this point in the season," said Herbst. "It's tough to get up and race a D-I team, but we held our own and had some spectacular races. We are going to be ready to drop two to five seconds per hundred at our first championship meet in December."
Junior Allie Foster was the sole individual winner for Hopkins in the 100-yard breaststroke, edging out a Maryland swimming by just .0001 of a second. There were a number of second-place finishes, including the 400-yard medley relay. Freshman Kristin Cunningham, Foster, sophomore Erica Pakkala and freshman Jacqueline Rooney finished the relay in 4:02.47.
Other strong second-place performances came from Cunningham in the 200-yard freestyle and Pakkala in the 100-yard backstroke. Rooney took silver at the 100-yard freestyle with a time of 54.6 and freshman Kate Hansen also was a runner-up in the 500-yard freestyle in a time of 5:14.
"The team has done a great job with racing against fast D-I opponents, Navy in our opener and now Maryland," said Kennedy. "Now we can see how we compete with defending NCAA champion Emory, Carnegie Mellon and Case. The attitude is good and the team is ready to swim very fast this year."
The men won over Howard with a score of 155-45 and lost to Maryland, 130-99. However, diving accounted for 26 of Maryland's points, so the Jays actually lost by only five points. The team won five of 11 swimming events against Maryland on Friday.
The Blue Jays won the 400-yard medley relay in a time of 3:29.77, almost three seconds faster than the Maryland team. Sophomore Ryan Kim, senior Tyler Harris, senior Brian Sneed and sophomore Bradley Test made up the relay for Hopkins. Kim also gave a top performance in the 100-yard backstroke with a time of 52.3.
The Blue Jays finished first in the 1000-yard freestyle, where freshman Colin Kleinguetl's 9:45.58 edged the Terps by .004. Test also come in first for the Jays in the 50-yard freestyle with a time of 21.42, and senior Sean Kim won the 100-yard butterfly in 51.57 and 500-yard freestyle in 4:45. Senior Zane Hamilton took the 100-yard breaststroke in 59.24.
Last week senior Sean Kim was named by CollegeSwimming.com as the NCAA Division III Swimmer of the Week for his wins in the 100-yard butterfly, 200-yard butterfly and 200-yard individual medley against Navy.
"I am very pleased for where we are at this time of the year," said Kennedy.
"Our team is doing some hard training right now, but we swam very well against Maryland and made a strong showing against a very good D-I team," said senior Carly Benner. "Both the men's and women's teams have some outstanding new freshmen swimmers who are helping us get our seasons off to a great start. Overall, the women are swimming faster than in previous years at this point in the season, and we're all excited to keep that momentum going."
Both teams travel to Carnegie Mellon next weekend for meets against Carnegie Mellon and Emory.
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