Harper Breaks Conference Meet Record, Swimming & Diving Finishes Second at America East Championships

Sunday, February 14

Worcester, Mass.

ALL DAY

University of New Hampshire

America East Championships

Photo by: Greg Greene

Harper Breaks Conference Meet Record, Swimming & Diving Finishes Second at America East Championships

2/14/2016 10:42:00 PM | Women's Swimming and Diving

Caspersen Receives Coaches Award, Brittany Driscoll Named Top Rookie

WORCESTER, Mass. – Jess Harper (Easthampton, Mass.), a sophomore on the University of New Hampshire women's swimming and diving team, broke the America East Championships and conference records with a winning time of 16 minutes, 33.54 seconds in the 1,650-yard freestyle race in the final day of competition at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. UNH won four of the six events Sunday and completed the four-day Championships with a total of 824.5 points to finish behind UMBC (885.5 points).

FINAL RESULTS

UMBC (885.5 points)
UNH (824.5)
Vermont (636.5)
Maine (448)
Binghamton (329.5)

HIGH HONORS

Senior Bettina Caspersen (Lyngby, Denmark) was honored with the David Alexander Coaches Award.
Freshman Brittany Driscoll (Wallingford, Conn.) was named the meet's Most Outstanding Rookie.

WE'RE NUMBER 1

Sophomore Jess Harper (Easthampton, Mass.) touched the wall in 16:33.54 seconds to win the 1,650-yard freestyle and break the America East conference and America East Championships meet records. She pulled away from the competition for a winning margin of 27.71 seconds.
Freshman Linnea Lemerise (Brentwood, N.H.) recorded a time of 2:00.67 in the 200 backstroke preliminaries to advance to the final heat, where she improved her time to 2:00.28 to earn first place. Lemerise edged the runner-up by .49 seconds.
Sophomore Liza Baykova (Moscow, Russia) gave the Wildcats three wins in as many events Sunday by recording the fastest time of 49.81 seconds, which was 1.82 seconds better than the time of the next swimmer to touch the wall in the 100 free.
UNH ended the 2016 America East Championships with a first-place effort in the 400 free relay. The Wildcat quartet of Baykova, Harper, Brittany Moffat (Cedar Fall, Iowa) and Sarah Broderick (Haverhill, Mass.) was clocked in 3:25.40, just ahead of UMBC's mark of 3:25.58. Baykova's leadoff leg of 50.00 seconds was the fastest split, followed by Broderick's anchor leg of 51.50.

NOTABLE FINISHES

In addition to Harper, two Wildcats competed in the A Final of the 1,650 free. Moffat took third place (17:01.77) and Bridget Miller (Longmeadow, Mass.; 17:05.51) placed sixth
Three 'Cats also advanced to the A Final in the 100 free. Broderick swam to fifth place in 51.99 and Maddie Murphy (Liverpool, N.Y.; 52.84) finished eighth.
In the 200 breaststroke, Caspersen was the top UNH performer in third place overall with a time of 2:19.18. Sarah Olver (Durham, N.H.) was next to touch the wall in 2:20.41, followed by Holly Driscoll (Wallingford, Conn.) in 2:20.89.
Two UNH swimmers advanced to the A Final of the 200 butterfly. Brittany Driscoll was the top 'Cat and fourth fastest overall with a time of 2:00.24. Vivienne El-Sibay (Munich, Germany) placed fifth in 2:05.12.

UP NEXT
UNH returns to action Feb. 25 at the Naval Academy Long Course Invite. The Wildcats will also compete at the ECAC Championships that will be held Feb. 26-28, also at the Naval Academy.

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