Swim teams finish second in nation

Sophomore Liz Horvat 11C, the newly crowned Division III Swimmer of the Year, won three individual national championships and swam a leg on Emory's title-winning 800-yard freestyle relay team at the recent Division III national meet. Both Eagle men's and women's teams took second place at the championships.

Paced by sophomore Liz Horvat’s 11C four national-championship performance, Emory’s women’s and men’s swimming teams both finished second in the nation at the NCAA Division III National Championship meet, March 18–21. Horvat was named the Division III Women's Swimmer of the Year and Emory’s Jon Howell was named the Division III Women's Swimming Coach of the Year.
           
The Emory men finished with 402 points, placing them second behind the national champions, Kenyon College (OH) (604 points). The Emory women finished with 466.5 points, making a valiant effort at a final-day comeback against the eventual national champion, Kenyon (560 points).
           
Horvat earned three individual national championships (in the 500-yard freestyle, 400-yard individual medley, and 1,650-yard freestyle) and set three individual NCAA Division III records. She also was part of the national-champion Eagle 800-yard freestyle relay team. Horvat’s performance matched Julie Hogan’s 85C Emory record for wins at a national championship meet and resulted in her being named Swimmer of the Year, the first Eagle so honored.
           
More Emory history was made by senior Tess Pasternak 09C, who set a school record in the preliminaries of the 200-yard backstroke with a time of 1:59.54, in addition to a third-place finish in the finals. After earning all-America honors in the 100-yard backstroke earlier in the meet, Pasternak became the first Eagle to earn all-America honors in two events for four-consecutive seasons.
           
Junior Ruth Westby 10C finished second and set school records in both the 100-yard freestyle (49.74 seconds) and as part of the 400-yard freestyle relay team (3:23.19). She finished the meet with seven all-America honors for the second time in her Emory career and became the first Eagles’ swimmer to reach 20-career all-America honors.
           
Rounding out Emory’s all-America honorees were Amy Minowitz 11C (seventh) and Anne Culpepper 12C (eighth) in the 1,650-yard freestyle, and Lillian Ciardelli 10C (sixth) in the 100-yard freestyle.
           
All together, the Emory women earned national championships in five events, set five NCAA Division III records, and turned in 20 all-America performances, 13 all-America honorable mentions and 16 school-record times.
           
The Emory men set four school records of their own, led by freshman Paul Weinstein’s 12C third-place finish in the 1,650-yard freestyle with a time of 15:27.89. He was followed by seniors Bruce Milburn 09C in fifth place, and Keith Diggs 09C in sixth.
           
Emory’s 400-yard freestyle relay team of Tom DiMarco 10C, Mark Bernstein 11C, Brad Sloan 10B, and Randall Scarborough 09C finished fourth in the finals, after setting a school-record mark of 2:59.88 in the preliminaries.
           
The Emory men recorded 21 all-America finishes, eight all-America honorable mentions, and 14 school-record times during the course of the meet. The second-place finish matches the best in the history of the men’s program, a feat the team has accomplished on three other occasions, most recently in 2005. The women’s second-place finish was their best since they won the national championship in 2006.—John Farina