Swimming and Diving Opens Season with Meets on Back-to-Back Days

Whittier College swimming and diving opened up its season with home meets against SCIAC rivals on back-to-back days.  The Poets lost to the University of Redlands on November 30 and California Lutheran on December 1.

Despite the lopsided team scores (147-65 on the men's side, 177-35 for the women), a number of Poets turned in solid performances against Redlands.  The 200 yard medley relay team of Matt Brammer '09, Will Jackson '11, Sam Benedum '09 and All-American Manny Sanchez '08 won the event with a time of 1:44.81.  Benedum also finished first in the 50- and 100-yard freestyle events with times of 22.24 and 50.08 seconds, respectively.  Sanchez also won two more events; the 200-yard individual medley with a time of 2:01.22 and the 100-yard breaststroke in 1:01.02.  Brammer finished second in the 100-yard backstroke in 1:03.72.  For the women, the 200-yard freestyle relay team of Ashley Papenbrock '08, Indre Lauraitis '10, London Blake '11 and Sara Wolff '11 finished in second with a time of 1:54.74.

The Poets' small roster size resulted in another lopsided score against Cal Lutheran.  The Poets lost 122-85 on the men's side and 121-62 for the women.  Sanchez won all three events he entered; the 200-yard freestyle with a time of 1:54.72, the 200 individual medley in 2:08.34 and the 100 breaststroke in 1:01.28.  Benedum finished first in the 50 freestyle with a time of 21.90 seconds and finished just one-hundredth of a second behind the top finisher in the 100 butterfly with a time of 56.44 seconds.  Jackson won the 100 yard freestyle with a time of 52.58 seconds.  Benedum and Jackson teamed up with Brammer and Chris Villanueva '09 to win the 200 freestyle relay with a time of 1:34.74. 

For the women, Catherine Gouge '08 won the 100 breaststroke in 1:12.74.  The 200 freestyle relay team of Papenbrock, Lauraitis, Blake and Wolff finished second with a time of 1:53.27.

The Poets host their next meet as well, but will do so at Whittier High School.  They take on Chapman University on December 8 at 11am.