Swimming maintains CAC Championship winning streak

By: Emily Seff

Staff Writer

This past weekend the Mary Washington Eagles swim teams competed in the Capital Athletic Conference’s Championship in St. Mary’s City, Maryland.

The four-day event consists of multiple races in two sessions per day totaling 8 hours of activity. The events began with relays first then went on to preliminary races before moving on to the final races to determine overall winners.

Out of 19 events, the men’s and women’s teams each won 16. Both teams won the overall championship with great leads. The women’s team ended the competition with a total of 1,110.5 points with an almost 375-point lead over York College who came in second. The men’s team also came in first with a total of 1,097 points followed by York College with a lead of almost 475 points. The teams also accomplished lifetime best performances in over 150 races, 2 team records, and a couple of freshman records.

The teams also won many individual titles including Men’s Rookie of the Year to freshman Kai Green, Women’s Athlete of the Year to junior Julia Geskey, Women’s Swimmer of the Meet to junior Mary Zagrobelny, and Women’s Rookie of the Year to freshman Thalia Costanza.

The seniors of the team were also very successful, with 8 of the 13 seniors on the team winning a  title at the event, some for the first time. Seniors Kaylie Benson, Noah Carpenter, Mark Dye, Austin Farrar, Julia Geskey, Garrett Ross, Carley Vaughn and Erin Whitesell all won a title.

With preparation for the championship starting over winter break, well before the event itself, the teams have been working towards this for quite some time. Swim season begins in September, with practices beginning towards the middle or end of the month. From then on, swimmers spend six days of the week practicing twice a day either in the weight room or the pool, swimming 20 miles every week. Leading up to the event itself, the distance swam and hours put into the weight room decrease as the training regime tapers in order to allow everyone to fully recover in the days leading up to the event.

Despite strenuous work, the swimmers thrive off of the competitive atmosphere. “My favorite part of CACs is watching all my teammates do well and I love all the cheering,” said junior Cara Lowengrub.

The teams will compete in their last regular-season meet Saturday against Johns Hopkins.