CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – With a podium finish for junior Elisabeth McQuaid (Marlborough, Mass.) and more scoring results in the swimming events, the Regis College women's swimming and diving team continued to move up into seventh place Saturday after the third day of the 2019 New England Intercollegiate Swimming and Diving Association (NEISDA) Championships at MIT's Zesiger Sports and Fitness Center.
McQuaid entered the one-meter diving finals after finishing second in Friday's preliminaries, and she maintained that position to end up with the silver medal for the second straight year at this meet. McQuaid ended up with 367.40 points, just 5.65 points behind event winner Monique Groux of Westfield State.
The foursome of Sarah Leonard (Brockton, Mass.), Julia Burke (North Andover, Mass.), Alexa Lancisi (Milford, Mass.), and Jessica Zernitsky (Newton, Mass.) finished eighth in the 200 medley relay in 1:54.36, 0.63 seconds quicker than their preliminary time.
Kyleigh Boatwright (Roseville, Calif.) was the only individual to qualify for an A-final Saturday, first posting a time of 1:01.64 in the morning preliminaries of the 100 backstroke. She then finished seventh in the evening final in 1:01.60. Leonard finished her preliminary swim in 1:02.49, missing the A-final by 6/100ths of a second, but then she touched the wall second in the B-final to end up 10th overall with an evening time of 1:02.01.
Zernitsky and Lancisi both qualified for the B-final in the 50 butterfly, with Zernitsky finishing third in that race and 11th overall in the event with an evening time of 28.02 seconds, followed by Lancisi in fifth in the B-final and 13th overall in 28.13 seconds.
The morning session wrapped up with the finals of the 1000 freestyle, and Thalia Bowie (Lexington, Mass.) led the Pride with a seventh place finish in a season-best time of 11:24.12. Gloria Sutton (Suffield, Conn.) also scored for Regis in the event, finishing in 15th place in 11:40.71.
As a team, Regis completed the day with 410 points to move into seventh place, just 10 points behind sixth place Westfield State but only nine points ahead of Eastern Connecticut State in eighth place. Simmons pulled ahead of Roger Williams by over 100 points to take the lead heading into the fourth day of the meet.
The final day of the 2019 NEISDA Championships begins Sunday morning, Feb. 24, at 10 a.m. with the preliminaries of the 100 freestyle, 50 backstroke, 200 breaststroke, 200 butterfly, 100 individual medley, and 400 freestyle relay, followed by the early final heats of the 1650 freestyle. The three-meter diving preliminary and final is scheduled to start at 2:30 p.m., and then the seven swimming finals commence at 5:30 p.m.