Women’s swimming and diving
Kenyon women’s swimming and diving team began the season with a solid performance. Kenyon notched eight wins out of 11 events, totaled 124 points and beat six meet records.
The Ladies started fast with a meet record finish of 1:44.76 in the 200-yard medley relay, swam by Makena Markert ’21, Crile Hart ’21, Hannah Orbach-Mandel ’19 and Kate Alexy ’21.
Soon after, the quartet of Alexy, Hart, Summer Otazu ’20 and Caitlin Foley ’19 broke the 200-yard backstroke relay meet record with a time of 1:44.07.
The Ladies broke four more meet records, finishing up with the 200 yard mixed medley. Ladies Markert and Hart teamed up with Lords Ben Baturka ’20 and David Fitch ’21 as they touched the wall at them :38.74 minute mark.
“It’s always fun to break records and it’s great to know that we were faster than years past,” Foley said, “But we really aren’t focused on the records. This meet was really to get up and focused on the fundamentals of swimming and to have fun.”
Most impressively for the Ladies was the depth they showed. Thirteen swimmers, six of whom were first-year swimmers, were part of a relay win.
“[The first years] will have a large contribution,” Foley continued. “A lot of them already contributed to the fast relay, and they bring a lot of spirit and energy to the team.”
Men’s swimming and diving
The Kenyon Lords swimming and diving team kicked off its season this past weekend with five event wins and a first-place finish during the Kenyon College Relays meet.
As a team, the Lords beat Denison University by 16 points, while Ohio Northern University came in a distant third, 50 points behind the Lords.
The Lords claimed first place in the 200-yard medley relay, 200-yard backstroke relay, 400-yard individual medley relay and the 200 freestyle relay.
The 200-yard medley win kicked off the day for the Lords when the team of Ben Baturka ’20, Michael Bartholomew ’20, Marcus Hong ’21 and David Fitch ’21 earned a time of 1:32.66.
Baturka, Hong, Fitch and Matthew Cooper ’18 then teamed up for another first-place finish in the backstroke relay with a time of 1:31.11.
The Lords also went on to claim the butterfly medley win, with a 1:30.57 finish for the team of John Zimdars ’19, Cooper, Fitch and Hong.
Kenyon also finished second in seven races. This included the team of Kieran Allsop ’20, Alexander Law ’20, AJ Reid ’20 and Bartholomew who finished the 200-yard butterfly in 1:48.74. The Lords team of Fitch, Reilly Shields ’20, Connor Rumpit ’20 and Weston Carpenter ’19 also finished second in the 500-yard crescendo relay with a solid 4:07.33 time.
In diving, Ryder Sammons ’19 ended the weekend with two second-place finishes, scoring 393.20 on the one-meter board and 340.10 on the three-meter board.
Donald Moffa ’18 has high hopes for the rest of the season. “We have a large class of first years and they’ve brought a lot of talent to the team,” Moffa said. “[They] will play a big role when it comes time to take back our NCAA title.”
The Lords and Ladies will both travel to The Ohio State University on Oct. 27.