Continuing its winning ways, the Amherst women’s swimming and diving team knocked off Middlebury in the Mammoths’ first home meet of the season by a score of 167-122. It was an impressive victory for the 12th-ranked Mammoths, who will likely climb a few spots in the national rankings, as the Panthers had entered the meet ranked 15th in the nation.

Amherst started off hot, winning the first 12 events of the meet. To open the action, the team of Stephanie Moriarty ’18, Katie Smith ’19, Geralyn Lam ’18 and Natalie Rumpelt ’20 dominated the 200-yard medley relay. This marked the third straight win in the event for the quartet, whose time of 1:47.96 beat out the second place finishers by nearly 2.5 seconds.

In the 1000-yard freestyle, the Mammoths used a mix of youth and experience to claim the top two spots. Promising first-year Julia Ruggiero posted a time of 10:47.71 to win the event, while senior Marie Maxwell took second with a time of 10:56.98. The 100-yard breaststroke proved to be one of the closest races of the day, as Smith narrowly out-touched Nina Fitzgerald ’21 by just .38 seconds to claim first place, while Meg Parker ’20 placed fourth.
In the sprint events, Ingrid Shu ’20 won the 50-yard freestyle with a blistering time of 24.90. Zoe Pappas ’19 and Hanna Sanford ’21 finished third and fifth with times of 25.29 and 26.55, respectively. The story was similar in the 100-yard freestyle, in which Rumpelt took first in 52.82, followed by Sarah McDonald ’20 at 54.97.

The best event for Amherst was the 200-yard freestyle, in which Rumpelt took first with a time of 1:55.48, Livia Domenig ’19 placed second with a time of 1:56.23 and McDonald claimed third to finish off the sweep.
On the diving side, Lindsay Ruderman ’21 scored a fantastic 288.30 in the one-meter diving competition to win the event, well over the NCAA B-cut score of 255.00. Nina Kiley ’21 was also able to pick up an additional point, thanks to a score of 205.13. Ruderman continued her success with a 266.55 mark in the three-meter diving, again topping the NCAA B cut score of 265.00.

Amherst closed out the meet in the same way that it had started by dominating the final few events of the day. Heather Grotzinger ’20 had the fastest time in the 200-yard individual medley at 2:11.91, with classmate Isabella Weiner claimed the second fastest time in 2:15.60. In the final event, the 400-yard freestyle relay, the team of Moriarty, Lam, Domenig and Rumpelt clinched the Mammoths’ last win of the day in a time of 3:34.73 to seal the dominating win.

The Mammoths will now have a four-week break before they return to the pool against Union College on Saturday, Dec. 30 at 1 p.m.