Washington, PA. - The dual meet schedule rolled on for the Wheeling University Women's Swimming team (3-1, 1-1) on Wednesday night as they traveled to Washington & Jefferson College. The Cardinals earned their first tri-meet sweep of the season, defeating the host Presidents 129.5 - 76.5 while beating Bethany College 148-14. The Cardinals would earn first place honors in all but two events on the night, with their senior leadership taking the forefront in the pool.
Three different Cardinals finished with multiple wins on the day, with senior Gabby Baiano leading the group. Baiano showed her versatility throughout the event, opening the day in the long distance swims before moving to short distance to round out the day. She would start out the individual swims for the Cardinals, taking on the Women's 1000 Yard Freestyle, and swimming a time of 11:05.46. It was enough to beat Washington & Jefferson's swimmer by three seconds as she pulled out a big win to start her day. She would return to the pool for event 15, where she took on the 100-Yard Freestyle. Baiano continued to show her excellence, this time in the short distance swims, and finished with a time of 58.11. She beat out teammate Caitlin Oltman by .74 seconds, rounding out a strong individual day in the pool.
The other three Cardinals to put together multi-win efforts were Niki Chrysafi, Lydie Sprecher, and Grace Moorley. Sprecher would start her day in the 50-Yard Freestyle in event nine, and took home the first gold with a time of 26.41. She beat out Washington & Jefferson's Riley Gutierrez by .49 seconds and would come back just four events later for the 50-yard Butterfly. This time, she would win the event with a time of 28.50 as the Cardinals took the top two spots in the field. Chrysafi's first event win would come in the 200-Yard Individual Medley, where she would swim a time od 2:21.99. After starting in the mid-distance events, Chrysafi returned for some short distance action as she swam the 50-Yard Backstroke. She would put together a time of 29.79 to round out her day with her first multi-event win of the season.
After Baiano started her day with a gold, Grace Moorley would be the one to follow her, swimming in the 200-Yard Freestyle. Moorley would pick up the win with a time of 2:04.36, and kept the Cardinal momentum going through the early event. After Sprecher and Chrysafi each grabbed their two wins, and Baiano picked up her second, Moorley was back in the pool for her second win of the day. This time, it would come in the 500-Yard Freestyle, as she closed her day out in the long distance events. She swam a time of 5:38.83, and was able to beat out the rest of the field by just under 30 seconds to finish off the individual events.
The Cardinals would both start and end the day in the relay events, and were able to compliment the individual performance with two relay wins. Up first was the 200-Yard Medley Relay, which the team of Chrysafi, Sofia Gonzalez, Sprecher, and Moorley took the pool. The foursome swam a time of 1:56.46, and got the day started with a bang. Rounding out the event was the 200-Yard Freestyle Relay and this time it was Baiano, Oltman, Luci Banks, and Laci Langmyer in the pool. The Cardinals would once again take the top spot, swimming a time of 1:51.03 to round out the day.
The Wheeling University Women's Swimming team returns to action on Saturday, October 25th, when they host Bethany and Chatham in tri-meet action at 4 PM.
