The Rensselaer women’s swimming & diving team took to the road for the last time this season as they drove down Interstate 90 to Syracuse for the NYSWCAA Championship.
RPI came in ninth in the three-day competition that spanned February 17-19.
“I was pleased with the way we swam,” commented Head Coach Shannon O’Brien. “I knew it was going to be pretty close. I thought we were going to be in the race for five through nine.”
The final standings were very close. In fact, when all was said and done, the Red Hawks were only 10 points away from seventh place Alfred University.
“We had a little bit of a rough first day,” conceded O’Brien, “and then they rebounded real well and we had a great second and third day.”
Senior captain Melissa Hershey led the way for the women with a fifth place finish in the one-meter dive and a win in the three-meter event.
“She had a great meet,” applauded O’Brien of her star diver. “On the one-meter she was winning, and then kind of fell into her last dive which wasn’t great, but she had a great one-meter prelims and a great three-meter.”
Hershey’s three-meter victory was her first state title in any event. “That was nice,” reflected O’Brien on the accomplishment.
Another Rensselaer bright spot was the 200 and 400-yard freestyle relays. The quartet of senior Katie Fredlund, sophomores Karel Schnebele and Lea Marlor, and freshman Oya White finished third in the 200-yard race and fourth in the 400-yard event.
“That relay of Karel, Oya, Lea, and Katie…that was awesome,” praised O’Brien. “In the two free, they were three-tenths [of a second] off the school record.”
Schnebele also had an outstanding individual meet. “Karel swam very well,” said O’Brien.
Beside the relay squads, Schnebele landed a win in the 100-yard freestyle, a third place finish in the 200-yard freestyle, and a fifth place finish in the 50-yard freestyle.
Marlor also enjoyed some personal success as she finished eighth in the 100-yard backstroke.
Fellow sophomore Tara Murnane also contributed to the Red Hawk effort with a seventh place finish in the 200-yard butterfly.
With the team season over for the women, Hershey will now anxiously wait to see if she is picked to represent RPI at the NCAA Championship meet. “She’s still waiting,” explained O’Brien of her diver’s national championship aspirations. “We’ll know on probably Friday afternoon officially.”
If Hershey were to be chosen by the NCAA executives, she would travel to Holland, Mich., on March 9-12 for the nationwide meet.
The end of the season also marks the departure of six seniors from O’Brien’s female squad. In addition to Hershey and Fredlund, swimmers Jen Byczek and Jenn Peck and divers Jennifer Keyes and Elisa Prange will say goodbye to the Red Hawk program.
The loss of one-third of her roster leaves a daunting task ahead for Coach O’Brien. “I think we have to bring in some more recruits,” remarked the coach. “It’s looking pretty good, but you never know recruiting-wise.”
Nevertheless, O’Brien is still excited about the possibilities for the eleventh women’s team in her tenure at Rensselaer.
One aspect the coach points to is the promising performance of her underclassmen-led 200- and 400-yard freestyle relay group at states.
“Granted, Katie Fredlund was on that and she’s a senior,” admitted O’Brien, “but I think that gives those guys some goals to look forward to for next year.”
That fact hasn’t been lost on those young swimmers either. “I think they realize that they’re pretty good,” said O’Brien of her freshmen and sophomores’ mindsets after the meet, “and now, with one season under their belt, they have some goals for next year that actually they already started talking about on the way home [from Syracuse]…which is kind of cool.”
