Women’s Swimming & Diving earns 9 top-five finishes, places fourth in Calvin (Mich.) Quad Invitational

By Wes Mayberry

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — The Ohio Northern women's swimming and diving team earned nine top-five finishes over the course of the three-session Calvin (Mich.) Quad Invitational on Friday and Saturday en route to ending the weekend in fourth place in the four-team field inside the Venema Aquatic Center.

The Polar Bears scored 492.5 points over the two-day event.

Host Calvin (Mich.) won the team championship with 1,201.5 points ahead of Albion (Mich.) with 889 points and Carthage (Wis.) with 853 points.

Senior Megan Lubinski (Loveland/Brighton) headlined the Polar Bears' performances with a pair of second-place finishes and one fourth-place finish.

Lubinski placed second in the 50-yard free in :24.51 and the 200-yard free in 2:00.84.

She placed fourth in the 100-yard free in :54.74.

Lubinski was also a member of the 200-yard free relay team that placed fifth in 1:43.28 and the 200-yard medley relay team that placed fifth in 1:55.07.

Joining Lubinski on the 200-yard free relay were freshmen Annie Richters (Troy/Miami East) and Sydney Selinsky (Dover/Tuscarawas Central Catholic) and senior Lauren Shaw (Port Clinton).

The 200-yard medley relay team consisted of Lubinski, Shaw, junior Shelby Starkey (Bellefontaine) and freshman Mara Brown (Fremont/Ross).

Starkey added a third-place finish in the 200-yard back in 2:15.58 and a fourth-place finish in the 100-yard back in 1:03.01.

Brown had a pair of individual top-five finishes, placing in a tie for fourth in the 200-yard fly in 2:23.62 and fifth in the 400-yard I.M in 5:00.00.

Brown also placed eighth in the 200-yard I.M. in 2:19.33.

The Polar Bears' 400-yard medley and 400-yard free relay teams added sixth-place finishes with times of 4:15.65 and 3:51.80, respectively.

The former team consisted of Lubinski, Starkey, Brown and freshman Aubrey Pritchard (Delaware/Olentangy Berlin), and the latter consisted of Lubinski, Shaw, Selinsky and Richters.

The 800-yard free relay team of Starkey, sophomore Katie Bend (Carmel, Ind.), freshman Hannah Eversole (Cincinnati/Mt. Notre Dame) and junior Gabbie Grant (St. Clair Shores, Mich./Lakeview) placed eighth in 8:44.49, and Eversole added an eighth-place finish in the 500-yard free in 5:37.87.

Freshman Hayley Solomon (Cincinnati/Sycamore) placed eighth in the 1-meter dive with a score of 134.65.

The Polar Bears now enter a roughly one-month break before returning to the pool for the three-day Wooster Invitational on Dec. 2-4.