Women's swimming team sets new records

Team takes last place with satisfying individual efforts

Though a total team triumph for the women's swimming and diving team was neither expected nor gained at the North Coast Athletic Conference championships held last Thursday through Saturday in Carr pool, there were enough personal feats accomplished and records broken to consider the meet a success.

The team went into the meet with only one of their two divers, with much of their team unused to the rigors of a conference meet, and with fatigue from an ill-planned program of intensity and rest. All of these contributed to the team's last-place finish with 110 points.

The Yeowomen did most of their intensive training over Winter Term, and so, though they had meets over the fall, nothing could prepare the many first-years on the team for the pressures of the championships. "It was a learning experience," sophomore Clara Stemwedal said. "Now they know what's going on and they're ready."

As for the misplanned rest program, "That's my fault," Coach Dick Michaels said. "I gave them too much rest. It's only my second year coaching woman and it's hard to figure out rest. People who have more explosive speed need more rest and most of the women who don't have explosive speed got too much rest. It's not their fault. They all tried hard but I messed it up. Our distance swimmers did fairly well, though."

One of these was first-year Julie Fritz who pared her 5:51 in the 500-yard freestyle down to 5:33.4. She also placed 12th in the 400-yard individual medley and 13th in the 200-yard butterfly with a 2:23 that was within one-and-a-half seconds of breaking a record set in the 1980's.

Another swimmer to do well was first-year Andrea Lindborg who got a 1:06.7 to place 16th in the 100-yard backstroke and placed 11th in the 200-yard backstroke with a 2:20.3.

Although she didn't break a record, Senior Kerri Sutton arguably could have been the swimmer most pleased with the meet as she finally managed to break a minute in the 100-yard freestyle. "Its something I've wanted to do since high school," Sutton said. "I knew I had done it, but there was that moment before coach told me I'd done it, and then he told me and I was so happy." Sutton accomplished her goal in the last race of her last meet.

"We were all very excited," Stemwedal said. "She's been trying to do that during her whole swimming career. It sort of made up for the rest of the meet being so-so."

Stemwedal had the best results from the meet as she broke and set three new records. She swam the 500-yard freestyle in 5:20.33 to break a record from 1983 which placed her 15th, broke her own record in the 1000 with a 11:03, and then broke a 1981 mile record with an 18:20.7 that got her 8th.

"People are looking forward to next year," Stemwedal said. "They want to train in the off-season, they had fun."