'On This Day' Women's Swimming Team Earns Third Consecutive NEAC Title
'On This Day' is a Wells College Athletics feature series taking a look back on events that occurred on this day, Feb. 16, seven years ago in 2014.
CAZENOVIA, N.Y. – For the third-straight season, the Wells College women's swimming program won the North Eastern Athletic Conference Swimming and Diving Championships. Across the three-day championships, the Express placed first amongst the six member schools with 444 total points. The Wells men's team took fourth with 230 points.
Since joining the North Eastern Athletic Conference prior to the 2007-08 season, the women's swimming program has racked up three league titles, the most amongst all sports at Wells College. Their performance has also netted the College its sixth overall league championship since their admittance to the conference.
Across the three-day 2014 tournament, the Express set seven program records, including the Women's 200 Yard Freestyle Relay (Flint, Daniels, Touron, Feudale; 1:48.70), Women's 50 Yard Freestyle (Feudale; 25.84), Women's 200 Yard Medley Relay (Feudale, Ross-Detro, Hanson, Touron; 2:03.21), Women's 100 Yard Backstroke (Feudale; 1:03.31), Men's 100 Yard Backstroke (Sleezer; 59.69), Men's 200 Yard Butterfly (Fischetti; 2:20.49) and the Women's 400 Yard Freestyle Relay (Flint, Kilbourn, Touron, Feudale; 4:00.33).
Head Coach Trish George, currently the longest tenured coach at Wells, was selected as the Men's Swimming Co-Coach of the Year following a poll of her peers. With five conference championships, George now boasts the most conference titles by any head coach in Wells College history, passing long-time women's tennis coach Peter Balbert who registered four-straight Private College Athletic Conference Championships in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Wells saw two record-setting performances on the third and final day of competition. The foursome of freshman Amelia Flint, senior captain Britta Kilbourn, junior Olive Touron and sophomore Hilary Feudale combined to rack up a program record time in the 400 Yard Freestyle Relay. Their time of 4:00.33 eclipsed the previous record of 4:01.07, set by two separate foursomes in team history.
Junior Tyler Fischetti also set a program record for the men's swimming program in the 200 Yard Butterfly, posting a preliminary time of 2:20.49. Fischetti passes the all-time program record set by Patrick Munroe (2:20.52) against Buffalo State on Jan. 11, 2013.
Wells opened the final day of competition strongly as Feudale earned 13 points following a second-place finish in the 200 Yard Backstroke. Her time of 2:19.75 ranks her second all-time in the event, eclipsing her time of 2:21.19 set last season at the 2013 NEAC Championships. On the men's side, Alex Lamphear went on to set a personal best time in the 200 Yard Backstroke, placing third with a time of 2:22.67.
Touron cracked the top-10 list in the 100 Yard Freestyle, placing second with a time of 1:00.01 to tie for 10th all-time. Before her contributions to the record-setting foursome, Kilbourn finished only .57 seconds behind Touron, placing fourth while Flint collected a seventh-place finish in the same event (1:01.73).
Senior captain Matthew Sleezer tallied a first-place finish in the 100 Yard Freestyle, placing first amongst the 12 competitors with a time of 50.27 seconds. He fell only .25 seconds short of tying his own program record in the event. In addition, freshman Gina Ross-Detro posted a career-best time in the 200 Yard Breaststroke, completing the event in 2:50.92 while placing third amongst the field.
In addition to George winning Co-Coach of the Year, Kory Parsons of Cazenovia College picked up NEAC Swimmer of the Year honors while the league's rookie was Nolan Graziano of SUNY Cobleskill. Graziano's coach, Nicole Damiano, was selected as the additional Co-Coach of the Year following a vote of her peers.
Throughout the 38 league events, the Wells College women posted 444 total points to lead the field that included SUNY Cobleskill (417), Gallaudet University (399), Cazenovia College (395), the College of Saint Elizabeth (302) and Cedar Crest College (141). Gallaudet led all of the league's men's programs with 528 total points with SUNY Cobleskill (478), Cazenovia (435) and Wells (230) rounding out the field.
