Several Belles Shave Time at Day Two at Calvin Invite

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. - The Saint Mary's swim team continued to compete at the three-day Calvin Winter Invitational on Friday.

Division II Northern Michigan moved past fellow Division II member University of Indianapolis for first place with 348 points to the Greyhounds' 342 points. Division II Grand Valley State is in striking distance in third with 335 points. The Belles sit in ninth place heading into the final day of competition.

Several swimmers improved upon their seeded times on the day. Genevieve Spittler started the trend by shaving more than 2.4 seconds off her 200 butterfly time to make the bonus consolation final with a time of 2:29.48. In the next event, Ellie Watson cut 3.5 off her seeded time to take 21st in the preliminaries of the 200 free with a 1:59.00 to also take a spot in the bonus consolation final. Carolyn Neville (-1.29) and Sarah Thompson (-3.20) made improvements upon their seeded times in the 200 free in the morning preliminaries as well.

Sinead Hickey cut nearly two seconds off of her 100 breaststroke seed time, and Liz Litke also improved upon her seeded time in the same event by a quarter of a second. In the 100 back, Anna Nolan had a two-and-a-half second drop in her seeded time to make the bonus consolation final with a 1:03.73 for 23rd.

In the 50 free, Nolan, Megan Knobloch, and Thompson all improved upon their seeded times with Nolan earning a spot in the evening bonus consolation final with a time of 25:34.

Watson then cut more time off her season-best 400 IM time with a 4:54.81, more than eight seconds off her seed time, to finish 13th and earn a slot in the B finals in the evening session.

In the night session, the 200 free relay combination of Megan Knobloch, Ellie Watson, Carolyn Neville, and Anna Nolan tied the fifth-fastest time in program history in the event with a 1:43.04 for 16th place. Watson then went on to earn points for the Belles in the 400 IM B final with a 15th place finish in 4:59.82.

The three-day invitational concludes tomorrow at the Venema Aquatic Center at Calvin College.

Saint Mary's Results
200 free relay: Megan Knobloch, Ellie Watson, Carolyn Neville, Anna Nolan, 16th (1:43.04^); Liz Litke, Sarah Thompson, Kristyn Gerbeth, Sinead Hickey, exhibition (1:53.97)

200 fly: (prelims) Genevieve Spittler, 20th (2:29.48)
(finals) Spittler, 23rd (2:32.64)

200 free: (prelims) Ellie Watson, 21st (1:59.00); Carolyn Neville, 26th (2:00.48); Emily Brown, 43rd (2:08.45); Sarah Thompson, 48th (2:11.19); Liz Palmer, 52nd (2:13.93); Paige Handy, 56th (2:21.13)
(finals) Watson, 24th (2:00.66)

100 breaststroke: (prelims) Liz Litke, 30th (1:18.07); Sinead Hickey, 32nd (1:21.85)

100 back: (prelims) Anna Nolan, 23rd (1:03.73); Megan Knobloch, 31st (1:06.81); Marta Carrion, 38th (1:10.74)
(finals) Nolan, 24th (1:04.44)

400 IM: (prelims) Watson, 13th (4:54.81)
(finals) Watson, 15th (4:59.82)

50 free: (prelims) Nolan, 19th (25.34); Knobloch, 35th (26.31); Thompson, t-36th (26.52); Hickey, 48th (28.79); Carrion, 50th (29.99)
(finals) Nolan, 21st (25.32)

400 medley relay: Carrion, Litke, Spittler, Palmer, 24th (4:41.07)

^ denotes all-time top five performace