Fairmont, W. Va. – With the 2024 Mountain East Conference (MEC)/Great Midwest Athletic Conference (GMAC) Championships just three weeks away, the Wheeling University Women's Swimming team is preparing for the trip to Canton. They swam in their final conference swim of the regular season on Saturday when they took on Fairmont State in what was a 107-92 defeat. Despite the loss on the team side, the Cardinals picked up five first place finishes on the night as they had several individual successes.
Leading the way was junior
Jade Miller, who picked up two of her team's five first place swims on the day. Her first win came in the Women's 200 Individual Medley, an event she has been featured in all season long. Miller would take the top spot with a time of 2:19.68, picking up the win by just under 10 seconds compared to the rest of the competition. She came back in her top event, the 100-Yard Backstroke and for the third straight event, took the top spot. She swam a 1:02.32 to get the win as she continues her upward trend towards the championships. The other three gold medals came from three different swimmers as
Gabby Baiano,
Marra Johnson, and
Grace Moorley each picking up wins on the day.
As she has done for most of the season, Baiano kicked off the individual events with the 1000 Yard Freestyle. She would start the day off with a big win for her team, swimming a time of 11:18.40, picking up nine points for her team. Like Miller's first swim, Baiano beat out her competition by just under nine minutes as she continues to dominate long distance. The next win came from freshman
Grace Moorley, who also took on the long distance events in the 500-Yard Freestyle. The freshman got her second win of the season, swimming a time of 5:34.75. the final Cardinal gold would come from Johnson, who swam in the 100-Yard Breaststroke in the final individual event of the day. Johnson swam a time of 1:15.16 as she picked up her first gold medal effort of the season to earn nine points for her team.
After Baiano's opening event win, the Cardinals added a silver medal effort as
Caitlin Oltman took second in the 200-Yard Freestyle with a time of 2:07.81. Moorley would be next in the 50-Yard Freestyle and got her first medal of the day with a time of 26.77. Johnson and Baiano would each then make the podium in the 100-Yard Butterfly, with Johnson swimming a 1:03.86 while Baiano added a 1:04.99 to take second and third. Oltman added another silver medal in the 100-Yard Freestyle (59.55) while
Sofia Castillo took third (1:00.92). The final two events on the day for the Cardinals were the 200-Yadd Medley Relay and the 400-Yard Freestyle. The team of
Olivia Moyer,
Maria Jones, Johnson, and Castillo took second in the 200-Yard Medley Relay (2:00.96) while the team of Moorley, Miller, Baiano, and Oltman took second in the 400-Yard FreestyleR Relay (3:54.04).
The Wheeling University Women's Swimming team returns to action on Saturday, January 27th, when they host Bethany at 1 PM.
