Strong Showing

We had an awesome showing this evening in beating St. Mary's College of Maryland. The final score was 129-76, and our swimmers took first in 8 of 11 events in the meet. I was really impressed with the team as a whole, both in the water and in the way the ladies carried themselves on deck. They really came together, displayed great team spirit, and had a good time at the Brock Center today. There is a correlation between enjoyment of swimming and strength of performances. For the 2nd time in 4 dual meets this season, we had over 10 lifetime bests!

I had the meet videotaped, which is something new and exciting for us. Unfortunately, our camera ran out of steam mid-meet(steam powered digital cameras just don't have what it takes to make it through 11 events), so we don't have any footage from the 100 Free (1-2-3 sweep for R-MC), 200 Back, 500 Free (1-2-4 for R-MC), or 400 Free Relay (R-MC setting a new pool record). Enjoy the footage:

400 Medley Relay:


200 Free:



50 Free:


200 IM:


200 Fly:


200 Breast:

A Tale of Two Swim Meets

We had back-to-back meets this past weekend. Friday evening we were away against Washington & Lee. Saturday afternoon we were home against Emory & Henry and Hollins. Though we had the same swimmers at both meets, it was as if two different teams showed up to swim for R-MC on Friday and Saturday.

At Friday's meet, W&L defeated us 156-102. The highlight of the meet for us was sweeping the relay events. The 200 Medley team of Hallie Stewart, Kellianne Mullin, Shafer Busch, and Sarah Almond took the win in another solid time of 1:54.35. The 400 Free Relay team of Lizzy Buckley, Laura Belch, Marlene Graf, and Sarah finished off the meet with the W in 3:48.22. In between those wins, we fought hard but just didn't have the energy and enthusiasm necessary to get up and race against a tough team like W&L. Lesson: Swimmers who are tight and nervous don't race to their potential. Swimmers who are loose, energetic, and positive will compete at the level they are capable of.

After our post-meet team discussion, I was expecting a different group to show up to the meet on Saturday and bring some fire, and I wasn't disappointed. Team R-MC was much more relaxed on Saturday, and that led to a much better meet. For this one, we played around with the lineup and put some people in "nontraditional" events for themselves. The results showed a balanced team effort, as the women defeated both Hollins and Emory & Henry, taking both relays and grabbing 8 individual wins from 8 different swimmers.

Here were the event winners:
200 Medley Relay: Stewart, Mullin, Busch, Almond – 1:55.12
1000 Free: Tracy Spurrier – 12:16.45
200 Free: Laura Belch – 2:04.11
50 Free: Marlene Graf – 26.39
200 IM: Kellianne Mullin – 2:19.47
100 Fly: Lizzy Buckley – 1:05.98
100 Free: Ellie Shea – 58.40
500 Free: Meredith Walters – 5:59.78
100 Breast: Hallie Stewart – 1:14.16
200 Free Relay: Buckley, Belch, Busch, Almond – 1:44.60

Next up is a Friday afternoon home dual meet against St. Mary's College of Maryland. It should be a close meet. Last year, we dropped a 109-96 decision to St. Mary's at their pool. We'll be looking to reverse that result this season.

Click here to view the 400 Freestyle Relay from the W&L meet:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BasYmnvEmGA

Hour of Power Relay

At 5 pm yesterday, our team (along with nearly 100 other teams across the country) participated in the 3rd Annual Ted Mullin Hour of Power Relay for Cancer Research. An estimated 5,600 swimmers took part in the relay this year, easily exceeding the numbers from last year. This was a great event to increase awareness and promote the need for additional support for cancer research. I'm proud that our team was able to take part in the relay and raise some money, which will be going to The University of Chicago for additional sarcoma research. As if the event was not special enough, we were lucky to have two Carleton College alums and Ted Mullin teammates join us and speak to the team before we got underway. Thanks to Barb Marmet and Jen Gratz for making the event extra special.

ODAC Swimmer of the Week - Hallie Stewart

Congratulations to our very own Hallie Stewart, who has been named the first ODAC Swimmer of the Week for the 08-09 Season. Hallie was selected as a result of her performaces last Saturday at the Washington College Quad Meet. Hallie won two events at the meet, leading off the victorious 200 medley relay (1:53.46) and finishing 1st in the 100 backstroke (1:03.58). Here's the link to the press release: http://odac.bridgewater.edu/winter/swim/default.html

R-MC vs. WashColl, Bryn Mawr, Sweet Briar

Last Saturday the ladies and I traveled over to the eastern shore of Maryland for our first dual meet of the year, which was actually a quad meet. Washington College, Bryn Mawr, and Sweet Briar were the three teams we squared off against. It was an unusually warm and sunny day for November 1st, which meant there were a lot of people heading east for the weekend. The heavy volume of traffic no doubt played a role in an unfortunate accident on the Bay Bridge just before we passed over, backing up traffic for miles. This hour-long delay made things dicey for us, and our swimmers didn't get in the water to warm up until 30 minutes before the start of the meet.

This had no affect on our performances for the day, however. Our girls came to swim, and they wasted no time in showing that they are a team to be taken seriously. Our medley relays took 1st and 3rd, with the "A" relay of Hallie Stewart, Kellianne Mullin, Shafer Busch, and Lizzy Buckley hitting the wall just .36 off the SCHOOL RECORD! In the 1st meet of the year! I knew it would be a good day after that. Other highlights included Hallie and Marlene Graf going 1-2 in the 100 back, and our 200 freestyle relay taking the W in 1:44.79. All in all, R-MC put up 10 personal best times/splits throughout the day, including 2 swimmers cutting 10 seconds from their previous bests in the 1000 (Lara O'Brien and Tracy Spurrier), and Kellianne dropping 4 seconds from her previous best in the 2IM. A great way to start off the season.

Team scores went like this:
R-MC 169 - Bryn Mawr 28
R-MC 160.5 - Sweet Briar 44.5
Washington College 116 - R-MC 89

Get to Know a Swimmer: Lizzy Buckley

Today's swimmer du jour is freshman Elizabeth Buckley:

Name: Elizabeth Buckley
Nickname: Lizzy
Class Year: 2012
Hometown: Springfield, VA
Favorite Event: 100 Free
Favorite Hobby: Sleeping [...Sometimes through practice...-ed.]
Favorite Food: Ice Cream - coffee ice cream from Estes
Favorite R-MC Swimming Memory: Riding a massive Dino turtle
Favorite TV Show: House
Favorite Quote: "I love lamp." -Brick

Get to Know a Swimmer: Corinne Campbell

Our swimmer of the day today is sophomore Corinne Campbell. Corinne was the ODAC champion in the 200 butterfly as a freshman, and holds the R-MC school and pool records in the event.


Name: Corinne Campbell
Nickname: Naked Girl....for appropriate reasons
Class Year: 2011
Hometown: Baltimore, MD
Favorite Events: 200 Fly, 100 Fly
Favorite Food: Seafood!
Favorite TV Shows: Every Caps game, The Office
Favorite Movie: Forrest Gump
Best R-MC Swimming Memory: Having my brothers surprise me by showing up for the exciting W&L meet.
Favorite Quote: "Kick his ass sea bass!" ~Dumb & Dumber

Congratulations to Us

By "us" I mean the 07-08 team, which was just recently named to the College Swimming Coaches Association of America's Division III Academic All-American team list for the Spring 2008 semester. The Academic All-American list honors those squads whose combined GPA is above 3.0. Our ladies combined for a very respectable 3.21 average last spring, and were among the 70 D3 women's programs to receive the honor. R-MC was one of only two ODAC programs named to the list. This is further proof that our swimmers strive to achieve excellence both in the pool and in the classroom.

The press release and complete list of schools can be found here: http://www.cscaa.org/

Get to Know a Swimmer: Lara O'Brien

Today we profile our freshman from the Lone Star State, the very first Texan to put on an R-MC swim cap, Lara O'Brien:


Name: Lara O'Brien
Nickname: Tex
Class Year: 2012
Hometown: Sugar Land, Texas
Favorite Events: 200 Breast, 1000 Free, Mile
Favorite Hobbies: Baking and the ever popular facebook stalking
Favorite Food: Estes Dining Hall. Just as a whole - delicious every day. Especially if you like stale cereal for dinner.
Favorite R-MC Swimming Memory: Keeping the team up until 4 am on my recruiting trip so that I could make my 6 am flight home.
Favorite Color: Green
Favorite TV Shows: South Park and Lost
Favorite Movie: Zoolander
Favorite Quote: "I'm pretty sure there's a lot more to life than being really, really, ridiculously good looking. And I plan on finding out what that is." - Derek Zoolander

Get to Know a Swimmer: Lindsey Reid

Today we profile junior Lindsey Reid, a 3-time conference finalist who, as you will see below, is a great team player!














Lindsey (center) at the 2008 ODAC Champs.

Name: Lindsey Shafer Reid
Nickname: Mom (for the team)
Class Year: Junior
Hometown: Glen Allen, VA
Favorite Event: Whatever Ben decides for me to swim!
Favorite Hobby: Singing
Favorite Food: Cereal and Chocolate milk
Favorite R-MC Swimming Memory: Winning ODACs as a freshman!
Favorite TV Show: Jon and Kate plus 8
Favorite Movie: The Big Green
Personal Motto: Just work hard and something good will always come from it, even if it's not what you expected.