The Emory University men’s and women’s swim and dive teams competed at the NCAA Division III Swimming and Diving Championships in Greensboro, N.C., from March 19 to March 22. The men’s team finished second, while the women took home a fifth-place finish.
Men’s team wins several national championships
The men’s team had a rollercoaster weekend including two disappointing finishes to start the competition. On Wednesday and Thursday, the team finished fifth. The highest-finishing group during the first half of the tournament was the 400-yard medley relay team, comprised of seniors Nolan Lahmann and Jeff Echols, junior Henri Bonnault and freshman Colin Zexter. The group finished in second place with a time of 3:12:01 in the final event on Wednesday evening.
As the meet continued into the weekend, the Eagles saw better results, earning second-place finishes both days. This resilient performance began with the 200-yard medley relay group, made up of Lahmann, Echols, senior Dylan Yin and Bonnault, which captured a national championship on Friday with a time of 1:26.72. Sophomore McKee Thorsen also had a podium-level performance on Friday, with a fifth-place finish in the 200-yard butterfly, scoring a time of 1:46.00. Freshmen Zachary Spicer and Solly Berkenwald also added podium finishes in the 100-yard backstroke with a time of 48.03 and the 1-meter dive with a score of 497.50, respectively. Senior Liyang Sun reflected on the uncharted territory of going into the weekend not being the team projected to win.
“It’s interesting having gone into this meet as underdogs,” Sun said. “In some ways that forced us to really squeeze water out of stone. Part of that, it comes from trying to uplift others, and in a meet where you’re not projected to win, you really gotta get behind people.”
Sun won his first national championship in the 200-yard breaststroke on the last day of competition with a time of 1:56.64. Sophomore Graham Zucker finished seventh in the 200-yard backstroke, swimming a 1:47.62 time.
“There’s a lot more that goes into winning than what you can control, and part of it is, inevitably, how your competitors do,” Sun said. “One thing that we do really well as a team is we focus on ourselves, focus on what we can control, and the result just comes from fortune.”
Sun was not the only individual men’s swimmer to come away with a national championship victory, as Bonnault won the 100-yard breaststroke championship with a time of 52.61. Bonnault emphasized how the men’s team culture led to a hard-fought finish on Saturday.
“Even though we were not gonna win after the first, the second or third day, we still kept fighting,” Bonnault said. “We didn’t discourage ourselves and we still gave 100%.”
Although it was not the expected result for the Eagles, the runner-up finish marks the seventh consecutive year the team has had a top-2 finish in the NCAA championships.
Women’s team earns 14 First Team All-America honors
The Eagles got off to a solid start on the first day of the competition, claiming three podium finishes. Going into the meet, graduate student Penelope Helm said the team wanted to use the event to recognize all their accomplishments throughout the season
“We always really try to emphasize treating the meet like a celebration of our season,” Helm said. “We had a really great season as a team, so we wanted to go to nationals and show that, so we were really successful with that. The whole team had a great year, and our performance at the meet was pretty good. We had a finalist in every event and scored more points than we did last year, so it showed how we grew.”
On the first day, Helm kicked off the finals by swimming a time of 4:51.02 in the 500-yard freestyle, which was good enough for third place. Senior Ava Kennedy followed that up by earning second in the 50-yard freestyle with a time of 22.66, which marked her first-ever podium finish.
In the last swim of the night, graduate student Megan Jungers, sophomore Katie Cohen, and freshmen Allison Greeneway and Caitlin Crysel finished in seventh place in the 400-yard medley relay with a time of 3:42.27. Cohen said the relay team’s close dynamic propelled them to their strong performance.
“We were just having fun,” Cohen said. “Relays are the best because you’re with your teammates, so it feels so much more important. We just used that team aspect to get us through.”
The second day of the championships was the most productive day for the women’s team, as the side earned five podium finishes. Kennedy, Crysel, sophomore Natalie Boorjian and freshman Louisa Wendt finished fifth in the 200-yard freestyle relay with a time of 1:31.98, and junior Meredith Liu earned seventh place in the 400-yard individual medley with a time of 4:23.27.
Senior diver Ariana Khan represented the Eagles in the diving competition, taking home a sixth-place finish in the 1-meter dive with a score of 424.25. Four Emory swimmers competed in the 200-yard freestyle with Helm’s third-place finish leading the way, followed by an eighth-place finish by sophomore Katherine Swan to take a spot on the podium.
The Eagles continued their momentum on day three with more strong performances. Jungers, Kennedy, Cohen and Greeneway finished the 200-yard medley relay in fifth place, swimming 1:40.94. Cohen said the team was able to enjoy the race because the nerves from the beginning of the meet were gone after two days of competition.
“We were just really happy to be there,” Cohen said. “We did really well in the morning. We placed higher than we were supposed to, so we were really excited going into finals. It was just a quick sprint down and back and we had fun.”
Cohen followed that performance by earning sixth place in the 100-yard breaststroke with a time of 1:02.65, marking her first-ever individual First Team All-America performance. The 800-yard freestyle relay team of Swan, Boorjian, Helm and freshman Elodie Mitchell claimed the final podium finish of the day, finishing third with a time of 7:18.93.
On the final day of competition, the Eagles earned three more podium finishes, beginning with senior Jada Chatoor, who claimed First Team honors in the mile swim for the third year in a row with a time of 16:54.55. Cohen also earned another individual podium finish with her 2:16.54 time in the 200-yard breaststroke.
The 400-yard freestyle relay team of Helm, Kennedy, Crysel and Wendt finished with a time of 3:21.86, which was good enough for sixth place in the competition's final event. Helm noted that the race carried extra weight for the team because it was her and Kennedy’s final competition.
“It was an emotional moment for us and even for the freshmen who were on the relay with us because we’d gone through so much together and that’s the last time we’d get to swim together,” Helm said. “But we were all really determined to end the meet strong.”
In addition to the podium finishes, the team’s performance was significant as it was the 25th top-five national finish in program history and the 22nd in the past 23 seasons. Cohen attributed the team’s consistent success to every teammate’s pride in representing the program.
“Every one of us is so grateful that we get to be part of this community, and we just put our best foot forward to make sure that we’re honoring everyone who has been on the swim team before us,” Cohen said. “We’re just trying to keep that going to the best of our abilities and being a part of a community where everyone wants that success and is such a hard worker and is doing it for the team really makes us successful.”
Sammy Brodsky (28C) is majoring in QSS and minoring in Film and Media. He is from Phoenix, Arizona. In his free time, he enjoys playing basketball, rooting for Philadelphia sports teams, golfing, and analyzing music. He loves sports analytics and journalism, and is excited to see what he can do for the Wheel.
