The Wildcats turned in a successful weekend at the Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference Championships over the weekend.
UNH only sent six swimmers to the meet, but still managed to place in the top-10, with an eighth overall finish out of 23 competing teams.
Last year’s ECAC Outstanding Swimmer of the Meet, Liza Baykova, earned a silver medal in the 100-yard freestyle and a pair of bronzes in the 50-yard and 200-yard freestyle events. More importantly, the sophomore broke all three UNH sprint freestyle records during the meet.
Baykova already owned the school’s 100-yard and 200-yard records. She broke the 200-yard record last season at the America East Championships, touching the wall in 1 minute, 47.48 seconds. At this year’s conference championship, she broke the 100-yard record with a winning time of 49.81 seconds, a mere .01 ahead of Denise Leckenby’s old mark.
At the ECAC meet, she improved upon both times with top times of 49.45 seconds and 1:47.21. Both times are good for NCAA B-cuts.
The Moscow native was on the hunt for Leckenby’s final record, the 50-yard freestyle. On the first day of the meet, she snuck into the UNH record book by .03 seconds, finishing in 23.00 seconds.
The Wildcats also had finalists in several other events. Brittany Driscoll and Jess Harper took fifth and seventh in the 400-yard individual medley, Brittany Moffat was fifth in the 200-yard freestyle and sixth in the 500-yard freestyle. Driscoll also placed fifth in the 200-yard I.M.
In the 200-yard backstroke, freshmen Linnea Lemerise swam to a 2:00.77 finals time, good for second place overall, and close to the NCAA B-cut time of 1:59.19.
The ECAC meet marked the end of the season for everyone but Batkova, who may swim at NCAA Championships in March.