The New York University women’s swimming and diving team competed against Columbia University in a dual meet on Halloween evening. The Violets, facing the NCAA Division I Lions at Morningside Heights, lost with a final score of 170-130.
“I was really happy with the way the women raced tonight, lots of fantastic early-season swims up and down the roster,” said Swimming Head Coach Trevor Miele. “I loved how the women got up and raced and didn’t back down. It would have been great to win the meet, but we battled right to the end and I’m proud of their performance and effort.”
The event began with the three-meter dive, where NYU’s Meera Kasturi placed third with a score of 263.25. Teammates Isabella Reyes and Katherine Taylor finished fourth and fifth, respectively. Columbia’s Chloe Leung took first place in this event.
In the one-meter dive later in the meet, Kasturi improved her standing by finishing second with a score of 264.68. Taylor and Reyes followed in fourth and fifth places.
“We were a little better in the one-meter tonight against a tough Division I team,” said Diving Head Coach Todd Kolean. “I thought Meera continued to be a force, but both Katherine and Isa are pushing her to get even better. Good Halloween night for NYU!”
NYU’s “A” relay team—Nicole Ranile, Sammy Wong, Reina Gomez, and Maeve O’Donnell—finished third in the 200 medley relay with a time of 1:46.02, narrowly missing second place by 75 milliseconds.
In individual races, Emery Muller took third in the 1000 freestyle while Alice Ciobanu finished fifth. Kaley McIntyre won the 200 freestyle by nearly two seconds; Llew Ladomirak came in third for NYU.
Maeve O’Donnell secured her second win as a freshman by taking first place in the 100 backstroke with a time of 56.91 seconds, just ahead of Columbia’s Shaelyn Shields. Eloise Emig placed fourth and Sarah Pierson sixth for NYU.
McIntyre also won her first race of the season in the 50 freestyle at 23.42 seconds; O’Donnell was third with her best time this year at 23.96 seconds.
Emig earned second place in the 200 backstroke, finishing only .33 seconds behind Columbia’s Jilly MacNamara; Pierson finished fifth.
Babette Bradley gave NYU another victory by winning the 200 breaststroke at 2:22.74; Kate Steinmeier was fifth.
In distance events, Bethany Spangler and Muller took third and fourth respectively in the 500 freestyle as Mia Avansino from Columbia claimed first place.
Ranile (57.20) and Gomez (57.55) closely competed for second place behind Columbia’s Ella Chan in the 100 butterfly; Kinley Wigle was fifth.
Zeynep Tokuz finished third in the 400-yard individual medley behind two Columbia swimmers.
The Violets ended on a high note by winning the final event—the 200 freestyle relay—with their “A” team consisting of McIntyre, Lian Jeong Engle, Ladomirak, and O’Donnell clocking in at 1:34.68 to beat Columbia’s top relay squad by just over six-tenths of a second.
NYU will return to competition at its Fall Invitational scheduled for November 7-8 at Palladium Athletic Facility.
