Eleven gold medals and 19 program record-breaking performances propelled both the Georgetown men’s and women’s swim and dive teams to second-place finishes at the Big East championships.

The Blue and Gray entered the four-day tournament from Feb. 26 to Feb. 29 with the men as defending second-place Big East finishers and the women as third-place finishers in 2019.

On Wednesday at the Nassau County Aquatic Center in New York, the relay squad of senior Cristina Barrett, senior Lauren Rutledge, freshman Ryan Evangelista and freshman Alexandra Robertson kicked off competition for the Hoyas and raced to a 7:28.38 finish for the third spot in the 800 freestyle after Rutledge’s second-leg performance pulled the squad from 2.17 seconds back to within 0.49 seconds of the top spot. 

Junior Riley Fujioka followed up with a dominant 560.3 finals score in the women’s one-meter diving event to claim gold with a win margin of 44.15 points. Senior Elizabeth Miller grabbed silver in the event with 516.15 points.

The day saw one final Hoya medal for the women’s team with a third-place finish in the 200 relay from sophomore Grace Chen, junior Alexandra Rieker, sophomore Gabriella Meringolo and junior Belinda Donohoe. The performances propelled the Blue and Gray to the top spot on the leaderboard with a 15-point advantage over rival Villanova after one day. 

The Georgetown men’s team similarly finished in first in the standings after day one, tied for the top spot with the Wildcats’ team. The group of junior Drew Carbone, freshman Connor Morikawa, freshman Michael Baldini and sophomore Sean Devlin led the Hoyas with a 1:28.48 first-place finish in the 200 medley relay, shattering the program record by almost two seconds in the process. 

Georgetown returned to the pool the following day with another three record-setting performances. Sophomore Brett Sherman became the first Hoya of the day to stand atop the podium with a 4:22.63 finish in the 500 freestyle, besting his own program record. 

Carbone added a gold medal of his own, cruising into a first-place win in the 200-yard IM with a time of 1:46.10 to break his own school record and top the second-place finisher by more than a second. Baldini rounded out the event, touching the wall in 1:49.07 to stand third on the podium. 

Carbone also had a hand in Georgetown’s last program record of the day, swimming the opening leg of the 200 freestyle relay followed by senior Jack Calderwood, Baldini and Devlin to finish third and take down the previous program record by 0.60 of a second. 

Freshman Joseph Hofman recorded the men’s last top-three finish of the day, grabbing bronze in the three-meter diving event with a 260.1 finals score to break into the top three following a fourth-place finish in the preliminaries. 

Donohoe earned the women’s best finish on the day, taking home the bronze medal in the 50 freestyle with a personal best time of 23.25.

Through 14 events, the Georgetown women’s team stood in second place and trailed Villanova by 64 while the men dropped to fourth place but sat just 14 points out of first. 

The Hoyas gained traction in the third day of the championships, with the men rising to third in the standings while the women steadily held on to the second spot. 

Junior Phoebe Slaughter climbed onto the podium first for the Blue and Gray, notching a third-place finish in the 400 IM with a 4:23.83 final time after having broken her personal best with a time of 4:23.23 in the preliminary round. 

Sherman similarly topped his own record with a 3:52.01 finish in the same event to claim silver for the Georgetown men’s team. 

Morikawa brought home another silver medal in the 100-yard breaststroke with a program best time of 54.51 while junior Nathaniel Goldfarb joined him on the podium with a time of 55.60. 

Chen collected the women’s first gold medal in a Big East swimming event in two years with a 100-yard backstroke victory, touching the wall in 55.85 seconds. Carbone closed out the Georgetown sweep of the event, coming in at 47.18 to earn the first-place finish for the men and shatter his personal record. 

After returning to the diving board, Fujioka, who earned the honor of Most Outstanding Women’s Diver of the Meet, took home gold once again with a 574.65 total score and a 47-point win margin in the three-meter diving event after breaking her personal record in the preliminary round. Miller followed up with the bronze medal after tallying 519.25 total points. Since the competition, Head Diving Coach Marc VanDyken received the title of Big East Women’s Diving Coach of the Year. 

The Blue and Gray relay squad of Chen, freshman Samantha Kim, senior Lauren Henasey and Donohoe added to Georgetown’s collection of hardware with a bronze medal in the 400 relay with a 3:47.91 finish. 

Carbone, Morikawa, Baldini and Devlin rounded out the day with continued dominance, picking up a big win in the 400 medley relay with a program record-setting time of 3:13.71 to rack up 40 points for the Hoyas. 

On the final day of competition, freshman Corey Moon opened for the women’s team with a 16:56.49 second-place finish while Slaughter, behind a speedy comeback from sixth place midway through her event, grabbed a second straight silver for the Hoyas in the 200 backstroke with a time of 2:01.22.

Donohoe finished in 50.78 in the 100 freestyle to grab bronze before Rieker also reappeared on the podium following a 2:20.34 finish in the 200 breaststroke to notch third place for the women. 

The quartet of Rutledge, Slaughter, Robertson and Donohoe took home yet another Georgetown bronze in the 400 freestyle relay in 3:26.13. 

Carbone, who has since been named the Big East Championships’ Male Most Outstanding Swimmer for the third consecutive year, secured his third individual title with a Big East record-setting swim of 1:42.11 in the 200 backstroke, topping an eight-year standing record. 

After tying a personal best time in the 100 freestyle preliminaries, Devlin won gold with a time of 44.93 in the finals. 

Morikawa rounded out his day with a Georgetown program record of 1:58.20 in the 200 breaststroke to earn silver, becoming the first Hoya to eclipse the two-minute mark, while Hofman collected a bronze medal from the diving board in the three-meter dive. 

Finishing the day with their 11th Georgetown record, the Hoyas took gold in the final event behind a 2:59.05 finish from relay team Devlin, Baldini, freshman Sean Percin and Carbone in the 400 freestyle.

After the conclusion of the Big East competition, the Hoyas return to campus with two team second-place trophies, dozens of individual medals and 19 new program records to mark the end of another dominant season.