MEDFORD - Freshman Caroline McCormick broke a school record and had the team's highest finish as Tufts University Women's Swimming & Diving competed on the first day of the NESCAC Championships at Middlebury College Friday.
McCormick swam a time of 26.86 seconds in the 50 backstroke final to place fourth at the meet and set a new Tufts standard. She smashed the previous Jumbo mark of 27.37 by Samantha Sliwinski in 2012. McCormick had earned the last spot in the final with a 27.45 for eighth in the preliminaries and then cut 0.59 off her time in the final.
Led by the 26 points McCormick scored in the 50 back, Tufts is seventh at the meet after the first day. The Jumbos totaled 269.5 points in the nine events. Williams (731), Amherst (512), and Bates (492.5) are the top three.
The Jumbos finished the first day well as the 400 medley relay of McCormick, junior Amanda Gottschalk, freshman Colleen Doolan, and sophomore Jess Lee placed sixth with a 3:56.74 time. Tufts' top foursome had been eighth in the prelims and was #11 on the pre-meet psych sheet.
Tufts was eighth in the 200 freestyle relay to open the meet with a foursome of Doolan, Lee, senior tri-captain Sarah Mahoney and junior Sophia Lin timing 1:37.39. Lin swam a 23.92 in the anchor leg.
Gottschalk also finaled in the 200 individual medley. After qualifying with a 2:08.09 in the preliminaries, she swam 2:07.54 in the final for eighth place.
Freshman Maddie Maider took 14 seconds off her regular-season time with a 5:09.09 in the 500 freestyle preliminaries. Lin's 24.55 for 13th place in the 50 freestyle was a six-spot improvement on her #19 qualifying mark. Junior diver Kylie Reiman also had an eighth in one-meter diving. Her 365.15 in the preliminaries was the better of her two scores.
The Jumbos return to the Middlebury Natatorium tommorrow for day two of the NESCAC Championships.
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