GREENSBORO, N.C. – Two more Centennial Conference records, two more All-America awards – what a way for the Ursinus College women's swimming team to wrap up the best season in school history.
Sophie May crashed the consolation finals and finished 13th with an incredible swim in the 100 free and teamed up with senior stalwarts Clara Baker and Peyten Lyons and freshman phenom Sophie Lear to break their own conference record with the same placement in the 400 free relay.
When the last event had been completed, the Bears had racked up 75 team points and finished 17th in the team standings – both the best in program history.
Over the course of the four-day national meet, Ursinus picked up four All-American relays and received individual All-America performances from Baker (100 fly) and May, who put together a record-breaking sprint to secure her place in the top-16.
May was seeded well out of qualifying range in the 100 free, but came through with the swim of her life when it mattered most. May knocked off a full three-quarters of a second from her already program-record clocking, touching the wall in 50.97 to place 10th and become the first swimmer in Centennial Conference history to crack the 51-second barrier. Her seed time would have put her in a tie for 28th place, but May blew it out of the water to put herself in line for the first individual All-America award.= of her career.
The 400 free relay squad needed to lower its own conference record to crash the consolation final, and the Bears' quartet did just that. The foursome shaved .37 seconds off their seed time to complete the race in 3:28.24, enough to edge out Amherst by a quarter-second for the 16th and final spot in the night session.
Once into the final, the Bears made another move up the ranks with a 3:27.94, bettering their own record from the CC championship meet and ascending three spots from their prelim placing.
Baker capped her legendary Ursinus career with 12 All-America honors, five of them coming at this year's nationals. She leaves with the program record in the 100 fly in addition to four conference relay standards, plus 21 CC gold medals.
Lyons, meanwhile, moved into a tie with Jennifer Derstine and May for second in school history with seven All-America certificates. She is the Bears' record-holder in the 100 and 200 back, as well as the 200 IM and all five relay events, and was a 24-time conference champion.
May added five All-America awards to her ledger, jumping into second in Ursinus history with seven. Lear was a member of three of the four All-Americs relays.
Lyons placed 28th in the prelims of the 200 back with a time of 2:04.69, just .15 seconds off her seed mark. Freshman Katie Schultz was 30th in the 1650 free (17:35.52).