The William & Mary women's swim team opened the 2019-20 season on Saturday in a barn-burner with Johns Hopkins, with the meet going down to the final relay before the Blue Jays were able to escape Williamsburg with the 135-127 win. The Tribe starts the year at 0-1, while Hopkins, a powerhouse in Division III with more than a dozen All-Americans on its roster, begins the season 1-0.
How it Happened
- W&M started the meet with a strong showing to win in the 200 medley relay. Sophomore
Anna Kenna (Chantilly, Va.) started the team off on the backstroke leg, before senior
Lauren Freeman (Fairfax Station, Va.) handled the breaststroke and freshman
Brooke Lamoureux (Virginia Beach, Va.) the butterfly. Heading into the final exchange, the Tribe was in second, more than half-a-second behind, but Olympic Trials-qualifier
Missy Cundiff (Leesburg, Va.) blew through the water in a 22.86 split and won the touch at the wall in 1:45.96, 0.04 ahead.
- W&M kept the winning streak going over the next two events, starting with senior
Norah Hunt (Stuarts Draft, Va.) in the 1,000 free. Hunt led wire-to-wire, and stopped the clock in 10:31.45 for the win.
- Junior
Megan Bull (Hillsborough, N.J.) equally unrelenting in the 200 free, winning the event in 1:51.99 for the first of two wins on the day.
- In the 100 breast, freshman
Annie Tuttle (Alexandria, Va.) won her first collegiate race, timing 1:05.85 for the win. She was just a second off the dual-meet record in the event, despite the team being in heavy training early in the season.
- Cundiff was back in the water in the 50 free, the event she's the freshman record-holder in, and nearly added two more records with her winning time of 23.28. That's less than two-tenths of both the pool and dual-meet records.
- After Hopkins won the next three events and took its first lead in the meet, Bull and Hunt were back in the water for the 500 free and finished 1-2 for the Tribe. Bull's winning time was 5:05.57.
- Despite tight finishes in the final three races, including the 200 free relay where Cundiff posted another sub-24 performance in the 50 free, Hopkins was able to win each event and take the meet. One of the longest-standing pool records also went by the wayside, with Blue Jays senior All-American Michelle Wang timing 2:05.32 in the 200 IM to break the mark that had stood since 2002. Wang's time was also an NCAA Division III provisional qualifier.
Up Next
William & Mary hits the road for the rest of the fall semester, beginning next Saturday, Oct. 12, with a trip to face East Carolina at 1 p.m.
