SPORTS BRIEF: Women's swimming takes first place at ECAC Championships

The return of nine swimmers on Sunday helped propel the Harvard women’s swimming and diving team from third place to first place at the ECAC Championships at Blodgett Pool.

Harvard put up a team total of 648 points while Marist College finished second with 589.5 points.

Just nine athletes competed for the Crimson during the first two days of competition, as the Ivy League Championships in Princeton, N.J., pulled most of the team away from Cambridge.

“We have to have two teams because you can only take a certain amount of people to each championship,” junior Lindsay Hart said. “Since we were going to be splitting up our team, we thought we would give another team a chance to rest and shave for a big meet.”

The meet concluded with an exciting win for the Crimson in the 400-yard freestyle relay.

Freshman Alexandra Clarke gave her team the lead in the opening leg, and sophomore Kelly Mooney, senior co-captain Kyle Cutter, and junior Meaghan Colling maintained the edge to win in 3:32.46.

Clarke, fresh off a victory in the 1,650-yard freestyle at the Ivy League Championships, gave Harvard an individual victory on Sunday with a 17:19.16 winning swim in the same event.

Clarke also finished second in the 100-yard freestyle in a time of 52.23 seconds.

Co-captain Noelle Bassi led five Crimson finalists in the 200-yard butterfly, touching the wall in 2:01.41 seconds to beat ECAC record-holder Kerry Goodman of UNH by over two seconds.

Harvard was paced in the meet’s opening days by contributions from some of its underclasmen.

Freshman Katie Faulkner opened the meet for Harvard with a second-place finish in the 500-yard freestyle, while Mooney added a pair of top-six finishes.

Cutter chipped in by claiming third in the 100-yard free while Faulkner took sixth.

Freshman diver Caitlin High placed fifth in the one-meter dive and fourth in the three-meter competition.