Wu, Nihipali, Kwok Break Meet Records, But Navy Rolls On at Rutgers

Complete day 2 results available here.

The women of the U.S. Naval Academy blew the scoring wide open on the 2nd day of the 3-day Frank Elm Invitational in Piscataway, New Jersey. By the time the day was finished, they had over a 350 point lead ahead of the hosts from Rutgers, and almost twice as many points as 3rd-place Northeastern.

Team Scores After Day 2:

  1. Navy – 1417.50
  2. Rutgers – 1052
  3. Northeastern – 715.50
  4. James Madison – 609.50
  5. Liberty – 534.50
  6. Central Connecticut State – 515
  7. Wagner College – 502
  8. LIU – Post – 364
  9. Sacred Heart – 178
  10. New Hampshire – 176

While Navy continued to blow through team scoring, Rutgers’ Joanna Wu again put on an impressive individual display with two more event wins to go with the three she earned on Friday.

That began with a 25.59 leadoff on the 200 medley relay as the Scarlet Knights rolled to a full-second victory (1:41.29) over runners-up Wagner College (1:42.25). While Navy was well back of the eventual winners, they again showed off depth by placing 3rd and 4th in the relay, while nobody else placed two relays in the top eight finishing teams – and the difference between Navy’s two squads all came in one leg, the butterfly, where Lauren Barber split 24.88.

Wu then won the 200 free individually in 1:49.13, with Navy freshman Casey Lawson (1:49.76) and junior Kenzie Margroum (1:49.91) chasing her under 1:50. Wu held the lead throughout the race, but it wasn’t until the final 50 yards where she put away a very competitive field.

Wu suffered her first defeat of the meet later in the 100 back, her 3rd swim of the session, where she took 2nd in 54.03. That placed her behind Wagner junior Anu Nihipali, who made headlines last year in this event by becoming Wagner’s first ever NCAA Championship invitee. She swam 53.69 in this 100 backstroke which broke her own Meet Record for the second straight season (she was 54.38 last year – and as such Wu was also better than the old mark).

The middle day of the meet saw a good diversity of swimmers wind up on top of the podiums, though Rutgers won the lion’s share of events. Morgan Pfaff took the women’s 400 IM in 4:18.99, almost four seconds bettter than her nearest competitor. Pfaff split her race spectacularly, negative-splitting each discipline aside from the opening butterfly leg (where she split 57.13 to dominate the field early on).

LIU – Post’s carried a victory for the Division II teams in attendance thanks to a 53.62 from multi-time NCAA Champion Joyce Kwok in the women’s 100 fly. Like Nihipali, Kwok also broke her own Meet Record done a year ago by half-a-second.

After Wu’s 200 free victory, teammate Rachel Stoddard got another win for Rutgers, winning the 100 breaststroke in 1:01.70 – ahead of Central Connecticut State’s Maddy Garber. Stoddard’s winning time broke the Meet Record formerly held by Katie Meili, who is currently a member of the U.S. National Team.

The day finished with an 800 free relay, where Navy continued to show off their endless waves of depth with a 7:22.58 victory. By comparison, their slowest split (1:51.48) would’ve been the second-best on Rutgers’ runner-up relay, which finished in 7:27.42. Wu, winner of the individual 200 free, split just 1:52.39 on that Rutgers relay – but by this point, she’d raced four events in a session that didn’t have the natural breaks of men’s races to slow things down much for her.

Rutgers’ Addy Walkowiak won the women’s 1-mter diving with a score of 321.80.

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About Braden Keith

Braden Keith

Braden Keith is the Editor-in-Chief and a co-founder/co-owner of SwimSwam.com. He first got his feet wet by building The Swimmers' Circle beginning in January 2010, and now comes to SwimSwam to use that experience and help build a new leader in the sport of swimming. Aside from his life on the InterWet, …

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