The final regular season meet for Georgetown and Lafayette saw a lopsided win for Georgetown’s men and the narrowest of defeats for Georgetown’s women.
The Leopard men dropped their meet to the Hoyas 175-119. The Lafayette women, however, were one-tenth of a second faster in the final race of the day to best Georgetown’s women by a score of 151-149.
Since both the Georgetown and Lafayette women’s teams won seven swimming events, the meet would be determined by the “B” swimmers.
The Leopards entered the final race of the day down 147-136, leaving them with only one chance to pull out the meet: a victory and second-place finish in the 200-yard freestyle relay. Four 50yd sprints stood in the way of Lafayette making an improbable comeback and creating a dramatic end to an otherwise unspectacular season.
The young team of freshmen Marcella Nehrbass, Kerry Nichols, Brittany Hitz and sophomore Liz Geary won the race by .66 seconds, leaving McCarthy Pool in a state of desperate anticipation as Georgetown and Lafayette vied for the meet.
Both teams touched the wall nearly simultaneously. But as the results were announced, Leopards leaped for joy as their time of 1:42.19 bested the third-place Hoyas’ time of 1:42.29.
The first- and second-place finishes gave Lafayette 15 points to their team total while Georgetown could only pick up two from the bronze finish.
Despite the loss, three Hoya sophomores qualified for the Big East championships in individual events: Caitlin Colling in the 200yd free, Tori Maffey in the 200yd backstroke and Claire Nugent in the 200yd butterfly.
On the men’s side, Georgetown faced a challenge in Lafayette senior Greg Van Volkenberg. Van Volkenberg took first place in four of the seven events that Lafayette won. His efforts in the 100yd backstroke, 50yd freestyle, 200yd backstroke and 200yd freestyle relay all contributed to his already stellar performance this year as captain of the Leopards and an all-Patriot League swimmer.
The Georgetown men, led by sophomore Chris Ball, who had first-place finishes in three freestyle events, the 200 and 500yd individual events and the 200yd relay. He was trailed only by ever-improving freshman Daniel Robinson, who was a part of the 200yd medley relay that eked out a win over its Lafayette competition by less than one second.
Robinson and Ball have both performed well since the winter training trip, totaling more than a dozen top-two finishes between the two of them.
The men’s diving competition was dominated by Georgetown. Seniors Santini Reali and Doug Curran swapped first and second place finishes in the one- and three-meter diving events with Reali winning the three-meter and Curran the one-meter. Curran’s one-meter score of 256.68 qualifies him for the Big East tournament this year.
The regular season now over, the Hoyas will next send their qualifying swimmers to the Big East championships Feb. 15-18 in East Meadow, N.Y.