By Katherine Harris

Contributing Writer

The women’s swimming and diving team started off with a decisive win as against George Washington in the first scored meet of the season. The Bison hosted the Colonials at Kinney Natatorium on Saturday afternoon in a joint meet with the men’s team. The team’s impressive depth led to a win, 169-124. Both the Bison and the Colonials placed first in eight out of the 16 events, so the win came from strong second and third place finishes by Orange and Blue swimmers.

“We saw some good improvement in a number of areas compared to our first exhibition meet of the year against UMBC,” head coach Dan Schinnerer said.

First-years placed first in five out of eight events in their first official competition for the Bison. 

Leading the way were Katie Hetherington ’15 and Stephanie Koziol ’15. Hetherington won both diving events, after setting the school record for one-meter diving last weekend in the exhibition versus UMBC. Koziol also won two events, the 200 back and 200 IM.

“I was really happy with how I swam this weekend. My times were extremely close to my all-time best times, so I was a little surprised to see that I was going so fast so early in the season,” Koziol said. “At the beginning of the meet GW proved to be tough competition and I think that forced all of us to push ourselves even harder to make sure we swam as fast as we could.”

More young members of the team were forced to step up for the Orange and Blue as key players were missing. Emily Wright ’14 won the 50 free and 100 free, and Lauren Perry ’15 finished second in both of those, and also took the 200 free.

“The women especially were a bit short-handed due to some injuries and illnesses so it was nice for them to be able to come through and score a strong win.  Our first-years … have made strong impacts right away,” Schinnerer said.

The team’s next competition will come in two weeks as they face some tough Patriot League opponents in Army, Lafayette and American in Annapolis, Md.