The Eastern Michigan Eagles women’s swim and dive team completed the Denison Invitational, which began on Wednesday, Dec. 4. The final day of the tournament was on Saturday, Dec. 7 in Granville, Ohio at the Trumbell Aquatic Center. On the first day of events, divers Michaela Schempf and Bethany Berger both met NCAA Championship standards.
Schempf earned a career best for her 289.95 and Berger with the second best score 279.70. Marcella Da Costa, a senior, earned a new career best in the 500-yard freestyle. The Eagles went into the second day of the Invitational strong, gaining seven new top-10 performances. Junior Riley Hofmann earned two of the seven top-10 titles in her preliminaries and final performances in the 400IM.
Carlee Jones also received a top-10 performance in the 400IM. Ali Staver went for the win in the 100 fly preliminaries and won with 55.45 for a then-eighth fastest time. Claire Young claimed two spots in the 100 backstroke. More wins from the Eagles came from a trio of juniors: Alyssa Shugarman, Meike Staffeldt and Senior Amelia Armstrong-Grant.
With the 2019 portion of the season coming to an end, the Eagles sit at 2-0 in the conference with victories over Miami (OH) and Ball State. The win over Miami was a 152-148 victory on Saturday, Oct. 26. The following week, on Saturday, Nov. 2, the Eagles took down the Cardinals, 167-133 in Muncie, Ind.
At the beginning of their season, Young turned in two second place results in their meet against the University of Buffalo and Armstrong-Grant went second, third and fourth in all of her freestyle events at the same meet. In the win over Ball State, the Eagles totaled 11 . wins and set two pool records, under first-year head coach Derek Perkins.
EMU also earned victories over Florida Gulf Coast and Oakland on Saturday, Nov. 9 at Jones Natatorium. The women’s swim and drive team will return to action on Saturday, Jan. 11 at Wayne State University in Detroit, Mich. The following meet with be versus Akron on Saturday, Jan. 18 on the road.
The next tournament that the Eagles will compete in will take place on Saturday, Feb. 15 in the Ohio State Winter Invitational in Columbus, Ohio. After that, EMU will head to Buffalo to take part in the 2019-20 MAC championships on Wednesday, Feb. 26. The event will conclude on Saturday, Feb. 29.
