A monster one-mile swim from senior captain Megan Price highlighted the Belles' first day of competition at the Calvin Winter Invitational.
Price swam the 1,650-yard freestyle in 11:27.50, a personal record by 28 seconds and one of the most impressive mile times in school history. Her time should secure her 20th place overall, but timing difficulties in some of the mile heats prevented meet officials from publishing official times or team standings.
Junior Liz Palmer also competed in the mile, also setting a new personal record with a time of 11:56.21.
"Definitely some of the best swims came from the two girls who we had swimming the mile. Liz Palmer started us off, and she had a great swim herself, she dropped eight seconds." Belles coach Mark Benishek said. "Then we had an absolutely amazing time from Megan Price, one of our team captains. She dropped 28 seconds and she just missed the top-five list for the program, so some absolutely great times, especially for the midway point of the season."
Price also led off the 800-yard relay, the only other event of the afternoon. She teamed up with sophomore Sarah Thompson and fellow senior captains Katie Donovan and Audrey Dalrymple to finish 16th in 8:26.89, over a second below their seeded time.
Benishek said he is looking forward to seeing Dalrymple compete in her signature event against some stiff competition.
"Tomorrow we have the breaststroke, which is definitely a big event for Audrey Dalyrmple," Benishek said Thursday. "I think she's seeded quite high; she's in the top 16 I think, which is great, especially with some of the teams in there. We have quite a few Division II teams at this meet, and there's one Division I team as well, [Valparaiso], so there's some great competition and some great results."
Benishek added that he expects to see fast times from his swimmers in the 50-yard free-style.
"There's the [50-yard free-style] we have quite a few swimmers in that," Benishek said. "We're looking for quite of few of them to see some time drops. We had a little bit lighter week with the taper going into this meet, so I think all around we should definitely see a lot of time drops."
Benishek said that he has so far been impressed by the strength and depth of some of the Division II schools competing at the Invitational.
"Some of the teams that definitely are very strong include Grand Valley State. They just naturally have a large, large team, and with the entries being unlimited, we're kind of at a disadvantage being a smaller squad," Benishek said. "They're definitely up there, as well as the University of Indianapolis they're very strong. We were racing them two weeks ago at Wabash College, so we have seen some of that talent here as well, so definitely two very strong squads."
The Belles return to the water Friday for the second day of the Calvin Winter Invitational at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Mich.
Contact Vicky Jacobsen at vjacobse@nd.edu
