Capping the weekend off with four gold medals, Swim and Dive wrapped up the Sun Belt Conference Championships on Saturday, Feb. 17, in Orlando, Florida.
“The staff is incredibly proud of this team,” head coach Ian Walsh said. “We had 34 all-time top-10 performances, six conference champions, three NCAA Provisional Standards, two school records, two NCAA Zone Cut and one conference record.”
The Herd’s four gold medal finishes came from Paige Banton in the 200 Breaststroke, Eszter Laban in the 1650 Freestyle, Madeline Hart in the 200 Butterfly and Alaina Laster in the platform.
Banton continued her record-breaking weekend on fire by winning the 200 Breaststroke, finishing at 2:13.62 and wrapping up the contest with 56 points, tying her for third among all swimmers at the Conference Championships.
Hungary native Laban finished the 1650 Freestyle in 16:41.68, five seconds shorter than her previous best and third best in program history to solidify her gold medal finish and second place spot in points among swimmers at 57.
The 200 Butterfly tandem of Hart and Molly Warner demolished the competition winning gold and silver respectively. Hart set the third-best time in program history at 2:00.64, and Warner at 2:01.42, the fifth fastest.
In the platform dive, the Herd filled the podium, with Laster taking gold, Larissa Munksgard with silver and Gabrielle Grace taking home bronze. The performances of the trio rank second, third and sixth best in program history. Grace Kelsheimer came in fourth with a score of 175.20 to give her the spot of eighth best in program history.
“The final session proved to be our best, winning four of the seven events tonight. Eszter, Madeline, Paige and Alaina all walked away a conference champion. It was a special night for the program. We’ve laid a great foundation to build upon in years to come,” Walsh said.
With conference play in the books, Banton, Laban and Warner will begin to prepare for the NCAA Preliminaries and Kelsheimer for the NCAA Diving Zones.
