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Date: February 19, 2005
Contact: Bill Sodoma

 

Colby women's swim team up to eight NCAA qualifiers

MIDDLEBURY, Vt. -- The Colby College women's swimming team was just happy to have a relay team qualify for last year's NCAA Division III Championships. The Mules could be sending eight women to the NCAA meet this year.

The Mules, who had four women qualify for nationals after the first night of competition on Friday, had four more women make it Saturday at the New England Small College Athletic Conference Women's Swimming Championships at Middlebury College.

Colby is currently in fifth place at the meet out of 11 schools with 620.5 points. The Mules finish up the league meet with Sunday's finals.

Lilli Higgins (Brookline, Mass.) and Melissa Plante (Fayetteville, N.Y.) will head to the NCAA meet after joining forces with Laura Miller (Manchester, N.H.) and Kelly Norsworthy (West Hartford, Conn.) to take second place in the 200-yard medley relay in an NCAA 'A' cut qualifying and school record time of 1:47.52. NCAA 'A' cut times automatically get the swimmer into the national meet.

Norsworthy placed second in the 100-yard breaststroke with a time of 1:04.53. The clocking by the first-year swimmer was the third fastest in Division III this season, an NCAA 'A' cut time and a school record. In the same event, sophomore Annie Muir (Springfield, Va.) placed fifth in 1:06.29 and also had an NCAA 'A' cut time in becoming the seventh Colby woman to qualify for the national meet.

Miller took third place in the 100 butterfly in 58.08. She had an NCAA 'A' cut time of 57.91 in a preliminary race. Miller was second in the NCAA meet last year in the 100 butterfly and holds the NESCAC meet record at 56.83.

Miller has been an individual qualifier to the NCAA meet in all four years at Colby. She started the NESCAC meet Friday with a win in the 50 butterfly. Miller never lost a 50 butterfly race in her career at Colby and won four straight NESCAC titles in the event.

Meg Vallaly (Lake Forest, Ill.) was third in the 200-yard freestyle in 1:55.29, while Higgins placed 11th in 1:58.21 (1:58.19 in prelim).

Colby's 800 freestyle relay team of Weather Potdevin (Juneau, Alaska), Vallaly, Higgins and Norsworthy had an NCAA 'B' cut time of 7:55.57 in taking sixth place. If the time is good enough for nationals, Potdevin would be the eighth Colby woman to head to the NCAA meet. The time beat Colby's school record by more than five seconds. The Mules, however, did lose some key team points when their 'B' team in the 800 relay was disqualified for a false start.