Women’s swimming leads from start to finish

The Duquesne women's swim team cruised to a 152-100 victory over visiting Mount St. Mary's Saturday, winning 13 of the 14 events.

Seven Dukes swam to first place finishes in their individual events. Hannah Kondrotas, Morgan Claycomb and Christine Rosebaugh placed first in one event each, while Miriam McGeath, Meghan Smith, Erin Cawley and Line Lovberg each won two events. 

The Dukes also swept the 100 and 200-yard breaststroke events, having swimmers finish first, second and third. 

The senior day meet honored the team's five seniors for their four years of commitment to the Duquesne swim team. A ceremony for seniors Kondrotas, Claycomb, Cawley, Katy Hare and Kristi Magee was held prior to the meet. All five seniors placed either first or second in an individual event.

Coach David Sheets said he looks at senior day as a way to give thanks for his swimmers that stuck with the program.

"The nice thing about senior day is that it's an opportunity for us to recognize and to thank the swimmers who have stayed with the program for four years," Sheets said. "The one thing that I told the swimmers in the locker room is that it's tough, and there are not a lot of people that compete collegiately for four years."

The team will use its final meet next Saturday at Towers Pool to prepare for the A-10 championship held at the end of next month in Buffalo.

"Everything from here on out is just a dress rehearsal to get us ready so that when we're at A-10s, everybody knows what they need to do and how they need to do it," Sheets said. 

The swimmers took away little things to help them prepare for the conference championship.

"I think now that we're starting to come down in our yardage and kind of taper for A-10s, we kind of focus on the little things," Kondrotas said. "And this meet just kind of brings it out that you're coming down from your training, and you're going to focus on the things that you noticed today."

The Dukes are looking forward to their meet this coming Saturday against Sheets' alma mater, Clarion. 

"[This meet] is going to be a fun one," Cawley said. "Our coach graduated from Clarion. Our assistant coach also graduated from there. It's always this fun little rivalry that they have with their old coach, that's always really exciting. We always look forward to this meet [because] it's fun to swim against them."

Kondrotas agreed. 

"Today is recognized as senior day, but next weekend it'll be our [the senior's] last dual meet ever. It's going to be fun. We're always really competitive with Clarion and pretty evenly matched," Kondrotas said. 

The Dukes were pleased with their overall performance at the meet, especially the support from their own team.

"We did great. The most important thing is them ... always standing up for everyone and cheering everyone on and being there for support," Cawley said. "It's what our team is all about, it's a family. It was seen today just like any other day."