Courtesy: Atlantic 10 Conference
NEWPORT NEWS, Va. – Davidson’s Daniel Valmassei and St. Bonaventure’s Katrina Wardner have been named the Atlantic 10 Conference Men’s and Women’s Performers of the Week, the league announced Tuesday. St. Bonaventure’s Elias Petri and Massachusetts’ Bella Snyder took Men’s and Women’s Rookie of the Week honors. The awards are for events completed Oct. 7-13.
Diving against VMI on Friday, Valmassei, a junior from Lake Lotawana, Mo., won the 1-meter and 3-meter competitions. He increased the degree of difficulty of his dives from the previous week, and it paid off, as he won the 1-meter with 334 points. His score was over 70 points more than his next closest competitor. He won the 3-meter with 304.55 points to win by more than 40 points.
Junior Katrina Wardner was a part of seven wins for the Bonnies last weekend at the Justin Jennings Memorial Invite, including four individual wins. A native of Orchard Park, N.Y., Wardner started her weekend off with wins in the 200-butterfly at 2:09.49 and the 200-freestyle at 1:56.38. She was also a member of the winning 400-medley relay team that finished in 3:57.84. On the final day of the invite, Wardner grabbed wins in the 100-freestyle with a time of 53.71, the 100-butterfly at 59.20, the 200-IM at 2:08.54 and was part of the victorious 400-freestyle relay team that clocked in at 3:39.81. As a team, the Bonnies defeated hosts Colgate, 234-79, and took down Le Moyne, 254-58.
Petri, from Saint Charles, Minn., earned his first two career individual wins this past weekend at the Justin Jennings Memorial Invitational hosted by Colgate. In the 1650-freestyle, Petri earned his first individual victory, touching the wall at 16:43.36. Petri earned his second individual victory as a Bonnie in the 500-freestyle in day two of the competition with a time of 4:44.95.
Bella Snyder capped off her weekend by winning three individual events in a 195-102 win at Fairfield on Saturday. The freshman from St. Louis, Mo., picked up her first win in the 800-meter Free, posting a time of 9:17.55 before following that up with a win in the 200-free with a swim of 2:11.35. Snyder capped off her Saturday afternoon by winning the 400-free with a time of 4:33.81. Snyder’s weekend began at Army on Friday, where she posted a runner-up swim of 5:12.01 in the 500-free.
