Kenyon Women Break NCAA Division III Record in 200 Medley Relay (1:39.59)

2022 NCAA Division III Championships

• Wednesday, March 16 – Saturday, March 19, 2022
• IUPUI IU Natatorium, Indianapolis, IN
• Defending Champs: Emory women (10x) & Denison men (2x) – (2019 Results)
• Live Stream
• Live Results
• Official Psych Sheet

Women’s 200 Medley Relay – Final

• Division III Record: 1:40.11 – Denison (2019)
• Meet Record: 1:40.11 – Denison (2019)
• 2019 Champion: Denison – 1:40.11

Kenyon broke a second record on opening night of the 2022 NCAA Division III Championships; after Crile Hart’s new mark in the 200 IM, the Ladies went on to win the 200 medley relay at the end of the session with a new Division and Meet Record of 1:39.59. Kenyon erased Denison’s mark of 1:40.11, set at the 2019 NCAAs, the last Division III championship meet before the pandemic hit.

Kenyon, swimming in lane 5 in the A-final after having posted the second-fastest time in morning prelims (1:40.85) behind Emory (1:40.21), trailed after the backstroke. The Eagles’ Megan Jungers led off with 25.38, getting to the wall .26 ahead of Kenyon’s Olivia Smith (25.64). Smith handed off to Jennah Fadely who split a 28.20 breaststroke, .11 faster than Emory’s Edie Bates (28.31).

Crile Hart outsplit Emory’s Taylor Leone on the butterfly, 23.57 to 23.71, to bring Kenyon within .01 of the Eagles heading into the final 50. Kenyon’s Emmie Mirus came home in 22.18, beating Emory’s Caroline Maki by .31.

Both teams were under the Denison record of 1:40.11; they produced the first two sub-1:40s in Division III history.

Comparative splits of the three fastest medley relays in Division III history:

As reported by Reid Carlson:

Top 8 finishers:

1. Kenyon, 1:39.59*
2. Emory, 1:39.89*
3. MIT, 1:40.81
4. Williams, 1:40.91
5. Pomona-Pitzer, 1:41.99
6. Denison, 1:42.28
7. Bowdoin, 1:42.29
8. Chicago, 1:42.83

Claremont-Mudd-Scripps grabbed another consolation final win to close out the evening, taking the 200 medley relay in 1:43.55, just a whisker ahead of Johns Hopkins who touched 10th in a 1:43.57.

The ‘A’ final would see both teams from Kenyon and Emory break the 2019 NCAA Record set by Denison, each going under 1:40 for the first time in Division III history. Kenyon would get to the wall first in 1:39.59 while Emory would be 0.30 behind to touch in 1:39.89. The next closest finishers, MIT, were nearly a full second back in 1:40.81. The women’s 200 medley relay was the second time this evening fans got to see a record broken by two different competitors–remember that earlier in the women’s 200 IM both Crile Hart and Jordyn Wentzel swam under Hart’s NCAA Record, posting times of 1:57.76 and 1:57.82, respectively.

Though Wentzel would not swim on the medley relay this evening, Hart did post a massive 23.57 butterfly split for Kenyon, the fastest in the field. Unlike the men’s medley relay, the fastest splits for each of the 4 legs of the race were concentrated between the 1st-, 2nd-, and 3rd-place teams. Perhaps most notably, MIT’s Edenna Chen dropped a 27.29 on the breaststroke, the fastest in the entire field by 0.93, representing the widest margin between every discipline leader and the next-fastest swimmer.

Fastest splits:

• Backstroke – 25.38 – Megan Jungers (Emory), 2nd
• Breaststroke – 27.29 – Edenna Chen (MIT), 3rd
• Butterfly – 23.57 – Crile Hart (Kenyon), 1st
• Freestyle – 22.18 – Emmie Mirus (Kenyon), 1st

TEAM POINTS UPDATE — WOMEN

  1. Kenyon                            100   2. Denison                            94
  3. Emory                              91   4. Williams                           59
  5. Mit                                52   5. Pomona-Pitzer                      52
  7. Claremont MS                       41   8. Tufts                              37
  9. Bowdoin                            36  10. Johns Hopkins                      32
 11. St. Kate's                         28  12. Chicago                            22
 13. Wheaton MA                         18  14. Amherst                            16
 15. Bates                              15  16. Hope College                       14
 16. Nazareth                           14  18. Mary Washington                    12
 19. Nyu                                10  20. Middlebury                          8
 21. Colby                               7  22. Ursinus                             6
 23. Albion                              5  24. Wash U MO                           4
 25. Uw-Stevens Point                    2