BY MELINDA PETRE

In print | Published February 7, 2008

Saturday was Senior Day at Ware Pool, where both men’s and women’s swimming fought hard to say a final home farewell to their five seniors, Andrew Frampton ‘08, John Heagy ’08, Katherine Koch ’08, Jennie Lewis ’08 and Franny Zhang ’08. With Ware pool the "busiest I’ve ever seen it," according to Doug Gilchrist-Scott ’09, there was a great crowd to see the seniors swim in their last meet. The large fan base created a high energy atmosphere which made for “an exciting last home meet,” said Lewis.

Even so, the team was able to focus under the leadership of the seniors and “pull together while competing against a really tough team,” said Allie Jordan ’09. “If anything, the fact that it was my last home meet made me want to make it worth it. I wanted to defend our house one last time,” Frampton added.

And defend the house they did, as the men’s team (4-5, 3-1 CC) defeated Gettysburg (4-5, 3-1 CC) 103-102 in a close race that came down to the wire. Women’s swimming (6-3, 4-1 CC) lost their first conference match-up after a hard fought battle to undefeated Gettysburg (8-0, 5-0 CC) 114-91.

Going into the competition, Gilchrist-Scott knew “it was going to be very close and that every single race counted.” Gilchrist-Scott’s instinct was right on target, as the men’s team picked up crucial points with 1-2 finishes in the 1000-yard freestyle, the 50-yard freestyle, the 200-yard individual medley and the 500-yard freestyle. Frampton took first in both the 1000 and the 500, saying, “I wanted to make my last meet at Ware count, so I put everything out there, whether or not I was in the lead, I just wanted to go out and show what I could do.”

“Except for three quarters of the way through the 500, there was no way in hell I was giving that one to [Stephen] Shymon ’09 on Senior Day,” Frampton said.

The men’s team won the meet on the nail-bitingly close final event, the 400-yard freestyle relay (Shymon, Tom Kelleher ’09, Gilchrist-Scott, Micheal Ahn ’10, 3:19.69) with a 7/100th second margin over Gettysburg (3:19.76). “Gettysburg put their fastest guy first in the relay, so we knew that we had a lot of ground to make up. In that situation all you can do is dive in and swim you butt off,” remarked Gilchrist-Scott. The dramatic finish gave the Garnet the 103 points they needed to win the meet.

The Garnet women found key points in the 200-yard individual medley and dominated the 200-yard butterfly, taking the first three places. The women’s side finished with a hard fought final event victory in the 400-yard freestyle relay, (Zhang, Julia Wrobel ‘10, Chelsea Brett ’11, Lewis) 3:44.47 over Gettysburg’s 3:44.56 effort. “It was a perfect end to win that relay, and even though we didn’t win the meet, we as a team had a lot of great swims,” Lewis said.

It was an emotional day for both the men’s and women’s teams, but as Jordan recalled, “The best moment, for me … was watching Jennie [Lewis] swim her last race in the Ware pool. When she stepped up on the block to anchor the final relay, the crowd on the deck and in the stands were all screaming and chanting her name. That’s what the meet was about: the seniors.”

This week, the Garnet traveled to Washington on Wednesday and will face Dickinson College on Saturday. Both Garnet teams look to draw a lot of confidence from the Gettysburg meet in order to “keep the ball rolling,” Lewis said. Frampton said the team intends “to go out there and show the conference that we are some scary guys to go up against.”

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