Amherst women’s swimming and diving wrapped up an impressive season with its 21st consecutive top-15 finish at NCAA Championships March 15-18. The team finished 15th, and the showing was highlighted by several standout individual performances.

Day one began with a 19th-place finish by Bridgitte Kwong ’19 in the 200-yard individual medley race with a time of 2:05.83. First-year Ingrid Shu highlighted the 50-yard freestyle for the purple and white, posting a 33rd-place finish with a time of 23.92. Shu then helped the Amherst women to their highest finish of the day, swimming the second leg of the 200-yard medley relay. The quartet of Stephanie Moriarty ’18, Shu, Gerlayn Lam ’18 and Destin Groff ’17 raced to a 13th-place finish in a time of 1:44.15.

The second day of competition saw some familiar faces and some new, as Kwong once again impressed by posting Amherst’s first top-five finish of the meet, securing third overall in the 400-meter IM race. Next, The 400-yard medley relay squad of Moriarty, Shu, Lam and Natalie Rumpelt ’20 registered 24 points for the purple and white by taking home seventh overall behind a time of 3:47.08. In the 100-yard butterfly, Lam touched the wall in 55.96 seconds to secure 15th place overall.

The purple and white’s best finish of day three came in the 800-yard freestyle relay, when Kwong, Moriarty, Jayne Vogelzang ’19 and Rumpelt claimed fifth overall with a time of 7:31.65. Rumpelt anchored the relay team and swam the fastest leg in a time of 1:52.26, just one 100th of a second faster than Moriarty. In the 100-yard backstroke, Moriarty claimed 17th with a time of 56.28 seconds, shaving nearly a second off of her seed time.

In the final day of action, Moriarty recorded the top individual performance of the day for the purple and white, placing 12th overall in the 200-yard backstroke race in a time of 2:01.86. In the 400-yard freestyle relay, the Amherst women notched a 12th place finish when Lam, Rumpelt, Moriarty and Shu recorded a 3:26.05 finish. Rounding out the day, Vogelzang grabbed a 24th place finish for the purple and white in the 1,650-yard freestyle in a time of 18:02.92.