Eleven swim and dive seniors ended their time in the Smith Center on a high note, sweeping Georgetown in the final home competition of the season.
The men’s team topped the Hoyas 153-90 and the women’s squad took home a 155-88 win. The pair of victories increase the Colonials’ win streak against Georgetown to five consecutive matchups for the men and four for the women.
On the men’s side, the squad nabbed 153 points and won nine of 13 total events.
Junior diver Peter Nachtwey started the day hot, punching his ticket in the NCAA Zone Diving Championship for the third consecutive season with two first-place finishes in the men’s one and three meter diving events. His efforts Saturday also earned him Colonial of the Week honors.
Nachtwey said he faced a “rough week of training” prior to the meet, but he felt confident in his performance after the first event.
“I knew I wanted to shoot for the NCAA zone qualifying scores today, but honestly I wasn’t sure that would happen,” Nachtwey said. “But as soon as I got my momentum going in my one meter event, I was pretty confident for the rest of the meet.”
Head coach Brian Thomas said he was unsurprised by Nachtwey’s score.
“He’s just a stud for us,” Thomas said. “He’s one that we lock in there and we know we’re going to get good stuff out of every time.”
The men’s squad nabbed 1-2-3 victories in the 1,000 yard freestyle and the 500 yard freestyle. GW smoked Georgetown in the 400-yard freestyle relay, winning the race with a time of 3:05.04 – 7.48 seconds faster than the second-place Hoyas.
In his first meet as a Colonial, graduate student Haoning Chen notched two first-place finishes in the 100-yard backstroke and 200-yard freestyle.
The women felt a similar level of success, earning 155 points and capturing 10-of-13 total events.
Despite a strong performance, women’s diving was unable to topple junior Riley Fujioka, who won both diving events by a 10 point margin for the Hoyas.
Seniors Jackie Torrez and Gemma Atherly both posted individual wins during the contest in the 200 individual medley and the 200-yard free, respectively. Atherly topped fellow Colonial sophomore Isabela Patino by 3.01 seconds, and Torrez hit the wall before Georgetown freshman Ali Robertson by .89 seconds.
The women’s team took the first and second-place spots in the 200 yard medley relay. In the 400 yard freestyle relay, the Colonials nabbed the top-two podium spots again with 3:32.80 and 3:38.73 finishes, respectively.
In the 50-yard freestyle, the women’s squad swept Georgetown and took the top four spots. Freshman Becca Brown led the charge with a time of 24.19.
By the end of the day, the Colonials nabbed first place finishes in 19 different events. The Colonials are now gearing up for the Atlantic 10 Championships in February. With only two more meets standing between GW and the tournament, Atherly said the team is focused on honing in the details.
“Between now and conference, a lot of the hard work has been done,” Atherly said. “It’s now kind of fine tuning the details, making sure we get our turns, starts, finishes, changeovers for relays, and getting all the little things down.”
For the seniors, the contest marked their final competition at the Smith Center. Five seniors on the men’s side and seven on the women’s will graduate at the close of this season.
Thomas said the senior class was instrumental in elevating the program to the level it’s at now. He added that points and finishes are replaceable, but the leadership the Class of 2020 brought will be difficult to match.
“That’s impossible to replace, you don’t get that coming in the door with first years, it’s built over four years,” Thomas said. “We owe a lot to them in terms of their commitment and the rise of both programs and getting better and better throughout their four years from a competitive standpoint.”
The Colonials are back in action Saturday at William and Mary. The first event starts at 2 p.m.
