Perry, Christensen make a splash at NCAAs
Former and future Olympians put together some remarkable swims during the four-day NCAA Division I Women’s Swimming and Diving Championships.
With the event drawing to a close, a pair of Connecticut swimmers got to go stroke for stroke with the nation’s best.
Norwalk’s Ky-lee Perry was up first as her seventh-place finish in the 100yard freestyle was the fifth championship heat the junior from North Carolina State took part in.
Not long after the freestylers exited the pool, Virginia freshman Kaki Christensen of Darien was part of the eight-swimmer final in the 200 breaststroke. Indiana’s Lilly King, a winner of two Olympic gold medals in 2016, won the event for the fourth straight season while Christensen finished in eighth place as she helped Virginia finish sixth in the team standings. Christensen was the eighth and final qualifier for the 200 breaststroke final and that proved to be enough to help Virginia edge out North Carolina State in the team standings.
Perry did all she could to help her team tie the program’s best finish in the NCAA standings. She was part of third-place 200 freestyle and 200 medley relays teams, anchored the fourthplace team in the 400 medley relay and also finished seventh in the 50 freestyle.
Middletown’s Monica Marcello got UConn into the team standings with a 16th place in the 3-meter diving.
The meet was the final representing Yale for Bella Hindley. She missed qualifying for the B final in the 50 freestyle by .09 seconds.
Local swimmers also had impressive showings at the Division III nationals.
Wesleyan’s Caroline Murphy was third in the 100 backstroke, New Haven’s Gwyneth Maloy was part of Williams’ 800 freestyle relay and 200 medley relay which took second and fifth place. New Haven’s Laura Rosado was fifth in the 200 backstroke for MIT, Norwalk’s Olivia Haskell anchored Conn College’s fifth-place 800 freestyle relay and was 10th in the 100 freestyle with teammate Maeve Wilber placing 10th in the 100 backstroke, NYU’s Jaime Robinson of Cheshire was 10th in the 1,650 freestyle, Mollie Seidner of Woodbridge scored in the 100 and 200 freestyle events and was part of four Washington University relay teams to earn top 10 finishes with Greenwich’s Catherine Cowin joining her on two of the relay squads, Coast Guard was seventh in the 800 freestyle relay while West Hartford’s Jacqueline Palermo of Amherst was seventh in the 1-meter diving, Riverside’s Suzanna Ryckman anchored Bates to an eighth-place finish in the 200 medley relay and Sandy Hook’s Mary Hufzinger was part of the 800 freestyle relay that took ninth and along with Cheshire’s Lily Kurtz was part of two other scoring relays.
On the men’s side, Durham’s Scott Romeyn finished sixth in the 50 freestyle, was 15th in the 100 freestyle and anchored Amherst’s 400 medley relay and 200 medley relay team to eighth and 10th place finishes. Salem’s Mitchell Ryan took sixth in the 1-meter diving and eighth in the 3-meter for Bowdoin. Coast Guard’s Chasse Sodemann was eighth in the 100 breaststroke. Coast Guard scored in three relays including placing eighth in the 200 medley relay. Hamden’s Curtis Maher was a member of Williams 800 freestyle and 400 freestyle relay squads that earned fifth and ninth-place finishes.
YALE’S WANG, BRIDGEPORT DUO HEADED TO NCAA GYMNASTICS REGIONALS
Yale senior Jessica Wang has been selected to compete in the uneven bars at the NCAA gymnastics regional being hosted by the University of Georgia. University of Bridgeport teammates Kathryn Doran (uneven bars) and Julianna Roland (vault) will compete in the Baton Rouge regional.
Wang led the Bulldogs to their second straight Ivy Classic title and won her speciality at the Ivy League, ECAC and USAG Collegiate National Championships and holds five program records in the uneven bars.
Doran had a score of 9.925 in the bars in a meet against Southern Connecticut State earlier this month and scored at least 9.8 in eight of her 13 meets this season. Roland has scores of 9.825 or higher in the vault in the last four meets of the regular season and topped the 39-point mark in the all-around five times.
Newtown’s Nicole O’Leary of the University of New Hampshire has been selected to compete in the vault in the Athens regional.
Nine of the 36 teams selected to compete in the regionals include Connecticut natives including 2018 CIAC State Open all around champion Adnerys De Jesus of Greenwich, now a freshman at Nebraska, Higganum’s Alissa Bonsall who finished as Penn State’s top scorer in the vault and was tied for the team high in the floor exercise at the Big Ten Championships, North Haven’s Kelly Martin who has scored as high as 9.9 on the vault for Iowa State. james.fuller @hearstmediact.com; @NHRJimFuller