BOSTON, Mass. – The Regis College men's and women's swimming and diving teams had strong weekends in the pool at the Great Northeast Athletic Conference Championship meet this past weekend in Boston, Mass. The Pride's women team came in second place at the meet, while the men took home a third place finish.
Day one of the competition left the Pride teams and second and third place, respectively. The women's 200 medley relay team of Svetlana Loranger (East Freetown, Mass.), Lucia Liorente (Newton, Mass.), Shannan O'Neil (Lowell, Mass.), and Brenna Melanson (Reading, Mass.) came in second place and broke the GNAC and pool record with a time of 1:46.48. Melanson also broke the GNAC record in the 50 freestyle with a time of 25.20. Svetlana Loranger broke a pair of GNAC records en route to wins in the 100 yard butterfly (1:03.01) and 50 yard butterfly (28.49). Haley Bowen (Litchfield, N.H.) rounded out the day with a win in the 100 yard breaststroke and another GNAC record with a time of 1:10.85.
On the men's side, the 200 freestyle relay team of Alex Graf (Newton, Mass.), Djordje Mandic (Portland, Maine), Andy LaForest (Roslindale, Mass.), and Nick Yerzyk (West Hills, Calif.) set a GNAC record with a time of 1:30.22. Graf added a win in the 200 yard individual medley with a time of 2:01.96, setting both a school and GNAC record by over four seconds. Stephen McGovern (Dorchester, Mass.) broke his own GNAC record with a time of 1:02.52 in the 100 yard breaststroke to round out the day.
Coach James Sweeney was very pleased after the first day. "They were much more aggressive in their swims this morning and even more so at finals, and we swam great. We broke several records including school, GNAC and pool records. Breaking 8 out of 20 GNAC records is just an amazing accomplishment."
On day two, the women's 200 medley relay team established another GNAC record, improving on their time from the day before (1:44.01). The men's medley relay team also set a new GNAC record in their event with a time of 1:40.42.
Amongst other records broken on Sunday, Stephen McGovern set new GNAC records in the 50 and 200 breaststroke, Brenna Melanson set records in the 50 and 100 backstroke as well as in the 100 yard freestyle. Loranger set the 100 back GNAC record, while Alex Graf set a new record in the 100 yard freestyle and Nick Yerzyk posted a new GNAC record in the 50 yard backstroke.
"We finished an amazing weekend of fast swimming breaking several more pool and GNAC records. At our midway point of the season we did a lot better than I had even expected," added Sweeney.
"The kids swam a lot of events in a short amount of time over two days and they showed amazing determination and grit as some only had a few minutes in between events. I am very proud of how we swam and am very excited for our team. To see so many best times and improvement over just two months of training is tremendous."
"Now with the bar being set higher, I am looking forward to harder training as we look to maintain our levels through final exams, and then on to our training trip to Puerto Rico in January as we look forward to the New England and ECAC Championships in the spring."
To view the GNAC Championship All-Tournament Team, please click here.