ERIE, Pa.—The Lady Baron swimming and diving team competed in its first-ever Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference meet Saturday afternoon. The NCAA newcomers traveled to Penn State Behrend, splitting a double-dual meet with Behrend and Bethany College. Franciscan beat Bethany, 60-41, and lost to Behrend, 42-57. The split result means that the Lady Barons are 1-1 on the season in the AMCC and 1-2 overall.
In a double-dual meet, three teams compete in dual meets against each other at the same time; in the case of Saturday's meet, Franciscan University competed with Behrend and also with Bethany, and then Bethany and Behrend competed against each other as well.
"I'm ecstatic. We did better than I thought we would," said head coach Nathan Blake. "Overall, the girls were really composed—which is impressive because eight out of 12 girls on the team are freshmen—and everybody swam well."
The very first first-place finish for the new program was earned by Lady Baron Grace Anne Beatovich, victorious in the 200-yard individual medley with a time of 2:24.21, almost five whole seconds before the second-place time of 2:29.28 from Behrend's Katie Siffrinn. Maria Giuliani earned three top-three finishes on the day; she finished second in the 200-yard freestyle (2:14.12), second in the 50-yard freestyle (0:28.36), and third in the 100-yard freestyle (1:01.19).
"Compared to last Saturday's meet, and even time trials in practice this week, almost everybody set a new personal record today," said Blake. "We have a few things we need to work on, but there are no big issues. We'll just stay focused on improving."
The biggest relay victory for the Lady Barons was a second-place finish in the 200-yard freestyle; Maria Deuchar, Mary Niehaus, Annie Williams, and anchor Erin Horomanski clocked a time of 1:57.41.
"We're at a good place, everybody felt great, and we seem to be over all of the shoulder injuries we ran into recently. Hopefully next week we'll go into Chatham even better than this week."
The Lady Barons will compete in a non-conference meet next Saturday, Nov. 5, at Chatham University; the meet is set to begin at 2 p.m.
