Varsity Club News

Season Ends at Nationals

Under the guidance of first year head coach and Saint Mary’s alumna Alicia Dombkowski ’02, numerous records fell and the Belles had representation at the NCAA Division III Championships for the second time ever as the Saint Mary’s College swimming and diving team completed one of the best seasons in program history.

From early on in the season, it was clear that the young faces in the program would be the catalysts to a successful season. First-year students Audrey Dalrymple and Eva Cavadini took little time to make their presence known among MIAA teams as top competition. The pair turned in top times in six individual events in a dual meet win over Alma in early November.

In another dual meet victory over an MIAA opponent in January, Dalrymple set the first school record of her short career with the Belles in the 200 yard breaststroke in route to finishing first against Albion. In that same meet, classmate Katie Donovan turned in a pair of lifetime-best performances for first place finishes in the 50 and 100 yard freestyle events.

A mainstay of the program, Melissa Gerbeth showed the season was not all about the first-year talent. The senior and two-time All-MIAA performer coasted to first place finishes in the 500 and 1000 freestyle events against conference foe Kalamazoo at the end of January.

The College hosted the MIAA Swimming and Diving Championships at Rolfs Aquatic Center at the University of Notre Dame over the weekend of February 19-21. It was the first time that the league championships were hosted in South Bend.

The Belles rose to the occasion as hosts of the championships and left some of their best performances of the season for the three-day event. On day one, the team broke six school records. Among the record-breaking performances of the day was Eva Cavadini bettering the 500 freestyle record set in the 1993-94 season by 2.74 seconds. In the second day of competition, four more school records fell. Audrey Dalrymple broke the school record in the 100 breaststroke in the morning preliminaries only to break her own record in the evening finals. She finished third while achieving an NCAA B cut time for the NCAA Championships.

After two days of impressive performances, the Belles did not disappoint in the final day of competition. They set five more school records. As a whole, the team set a remarkable 15 new school records in 20 possible events. First-year Barbara Beidler had break-out performance after break-out performance during the championships. She was a part of new school records in each of the seven events she swam with three individual College records and four records with the various relays.

Overall, eleven different Belles helped set at least one new school record during the MIAA Championships with Beidler, Cavadini, and Dalrymple combining for eight individual and four relay records. Among Dalrymple’s record-breaking performances was her second place finish in the finals of the 200 breaststroke in 2:21.16, which earned the first-year a trip to the NCAA Division III Championships as the ninth fastest time in the nation at the end of the regular season.

Representing Saint Mary’s College at the NCAA Championships, Dalrymple set yet another school record in the first day of competition in the 400 individual medley while finishing in 17th place in the 200 breaststroke to cap off an outstanding season for Saint Mary’s swimming and diving.