Women's Swimming & Diving

Ha Sets School Record in First Day of Competition at UNYSCSA/Empire 8 Championships

SYRACUSE, NY - The Hartwick women's swimming and diving team began competition at the UNYSCSA/Empire 8 Championship Meet on Thursday at Nottingham High School in Syracuse with several strong performances. After the first day of the three-day event, the Hawks have 205.5 points and rank 7th out of 17 competing teams. In the E8 standings, the Hawks are 4th out of seven teams.

Sophomore Stephanie Ha (Everett, WA) shattered the College record in the 200 individual medley to highlight the day for the Hawks. She first set the record in the preliminaries, swimming to a time of 2:10.72. In the finals, she bested her time by 25 hundredths of a second touching the wall in 2:10.47 for 5th place in the state. Both of Ha's times on the day were NCAA B-cut times.

Also in the 200 IM event, Katie Holmes (Cotuit, MA) tied for 10th. Her preliminary round time of 2:14.29 is good enough for 8th all-time at 'Wick. Whitney Fletcher (Superior, CO) and Mallory Weber (Naperville, IL) placed 21st and 22nd, respectively.

Robyn Smith (Jupiter, FL) took 9th in the 50 freestyle. She won the B-finals race with a time of 24.75. It stands as the 2nd best time in the event in Hartwick history behind only Bethany Carter's mark of 24.40 in 1984.

Erin Gray (Gardner, MA) earned an 11th place effort in the 500 free. She touched the wall in 5:19.67. Erin Fleming (Northampton, MA) placed 23rd in the state in 5:27.41.

Smith, Fletcher, Ha, and Sam McFarland (Derry, PA) combined to take 5th in the 400 medley relay. The Hawks shaved more than a second from their prelim time for a finals mark of 4:00.69, less than a second short of the Hartwick record.

The Hartwick 200 free relay team of Smith, Fletcher, McFarland, and Kristen Grunert (Oakland, CA) turned in an 8th place finish. The Hawk quartet ended their preliminary race in 1:41.38 with a finals time of 1:41.72.

The meet will continue on Friday and finish on Saturday. Preliminaries begin at 10:30 a.m., while the finals get underway at 6:30 p.m.

Live results throughout the meet can be found at the following link: http://www.hpagroup.com/women-unyscsa/.