Women’s swimming and diving comes up short to Leopards

LOS ANGELES, Calif. (Jan. 9, 2010) – On a day when the Occidental College women’s swimming and diving team came up just short, falling 100-119 to the University of La Verne in Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference competition, there were some highlights both on the boards and between the lane lines.

Friday evening Sarah Sharpe got the Tigers off to a solid start by sweeping both the one and three meter diving events to give Oxy an early advantage against the Leopards. She posted the highest scores of the meet on the first one-meter dive in a six-dive line-up at the Rose Bowl Aquatics Center. The field of judges awarded her reverse dive, in the pike position, 7.0’s across the board. Sharpe won the one-meter event with a combined 227.75 and went on to win the three-meter event with a score of 228.65.

Headlining the swimming portion of the meet was transfer Mili Kale who suited up for the Tigers for the first time after joining the squad just four days again from Singapore where she was a member of the National Team. She wasted no time making an impact for the Black and Orange, winning the 1650 by almost two minutes (19:56.51) never having competed in the event before. Kale went on to place second in the 500 free with a time of 5:50.32, under a second behind the winner, Terrah Carroll from ULV. Izzy Mayer was second in the 1650 (21:46.98) and third in the 500 (6:22.39).

Freshman Lauren Howarth and Danielle Garcia posted the only other victories on the day winning the 50 free and 100 free, respectively. Howarth touched the wall in 26.17, followed by Audrey Akcasu (28.12) and Sara Damore (29.45) in third and fourth places. Garcia won the 100 free  as the only swimmer to go sub-one minute at 58.47. She also came in second in the 200 free, behind Carroll, in 2:10.03. Alena Morris placed third in the event (2:12.61) and added a second place finish in the 100 butterfly touching the wall in 1:06.26. Leanne Rotman earned fifth place points in the 100 free (1:16.21) and 200 breaststroke (3:46.25) while Akcasu was third in the 100 fly (1:10.40).

Sara Mendoza chipped in with a pair of second place finishes in the 400 individual medley (5:21.79) and the 200 backstroke (2:31.67) followed by Damore (2:36.62).

Oxy opened up the meet with a second place finish in the 200 Medley Relay as Mendoza, Howarth, Morris and Garcia combined to swim the race in 2:01.54, less than a second behind the Leopards. The Tigers then capped off the meet swimming the 200 free relay in 1:55.16 with Akcasu, Kale, Mayer and Damore joining forces.

Occidental will jump back into the pool on Monday, Jan. 11 when they host the Pioneers from Lewis & Clark College in a non-conference meet beginning at 2:00 p.m.