The Eastern Michigan Eagles (4-1, 3-1) swimming and diving team defeated the Bowling Green Falcons (3-2, 1-2), 206.5-93.5, on Friday, Jan. 24 at Jones Natatorium in Ypsilanti. The Eagles are now 2-0 at home and have bounced back from their lone loss versus Akron last weekend.
Amelia Armstrong-Grant won the 100-yard freestyle, finishing with an impressive time of 51.99 seconds. She was also able to take home the 200-yard freestyle victory, scoring a time of 1:52.79. In the remaining freestyle events, Meike Staffeldt won the 50-yard race, clocking in at 24.16 seconds. Alyssa Shugarman was also victorious in the 500-yard freestyle event.
Armstrong-Grant is the Eagles senior leader. She is from Ypsilanti and attended Saline High School before joining the EMU swim team. Since then, she has been one of Eastern Michigan’s top performers. She wasn’t able to earn a career-best in the 100-yard freestyle (50.10 seconds) but she wasn’t far off as she recorded a score of 51.99 seconds.
Hannah White continued EMU’s dominant performance with a victory in the 100-yard and 200-yard butterfly races. Her times of 57.01 and 2:06.61 were good enough for first place in both events. White is a freshman from Carmel High School in Indiana.
As for the breaststroke events, Elli Machado won the 100-yard race to go along with Carlee Jones’ victory in the 200-yard competition. In the backstroke races, the Eagles finished with second, third, fourth and fifth place. Claire Young (55.82) took home second place while Avrie Stewart (57.68) earned third place.
Machado is a junior from Reading, Penn. and specializes in the breaststroke. Her career-best in the 100-yard race is a 1:01.03, which she accomplished at the MAC championships last year on March 1. Jones, who comes from Notre Dame Academy, also earned her career-best in the 200-yard event last year with a time of 2:09.58 on Feb. 1 versus Albion.
Despite the victory, the Eagles weren’t able to place first in either diving competition. In the one-meter, Bethany Berger earned third place with a score of 298.88. She was followed up by Sophia Tsafantakis (286.57) and Micaela Schempf (268.32). Tsafantakis earned second place in the three-meter event with 308.63. Berger was third with 272.93.
To cap off the strong outing, the Eagles finished in first place in all three medley races. EMU (A) won the 200-yard freestyle with a time of 1:37.44. Riley Hofmann (4:27.26) finished in first place in the 400-yard individual medley while the Eagles also earned first in the 400-yard medley relay with a time of 3:49.50.
The Eagles have two more events before the MAC championships begin. The first is on Feb. 1 which is Senior Day for the Eagles. The meet will start at 1 p.m. at Jones Natatorium. The final event of the regular season will take place on Saturday, Feb. 15 in Columbus for the Ohio State Invitational.
The MAC championships will start on Wednesday, Feb. 26 in Buffalo and will span four days as it will conclude on Saturday, Feb. 29. If the Eagles are able to make it this far, they will move onto the NCAA championships which are scheduled to start on Wednesday, March 18 in Athens.
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