By Joe Curry, Contributing Writer
Gettysburg swimming held its annual invitational meet this past weekend, December 2 and 3. Both the men’s and women’s team won all but one event over Shippensburg, Dickinson, and Scranton for the meet titles.
Gettysburg had a complete sweep on Friday night. The women’s freestyle relay team of Mia Yancey ʼ25, Olivia Evans ʼ26, Valerie Lawton ʼ26, and Delaney Reck ʼ27 started the meet off strong with a school record and scored an NCAA B-cut. The men also managed to pull out a victory during this event.
Later in the evening, Yancey broke her own record in the 200 IM and scored another NCAA B-cut. Reck also broke a school record from 2020 in the 50 freestyle, and the men were able to win out for the remainder of the evening.
Saturday consisted of a morning and evening session, where the men won out in the morning and the women in the evening.
The women finished out the morning session with a second place finish in the 800 freestyle relay. The men’s team concluded the meet with a second place finish in the 400 freestyle relay. Yancey also broke yet another one of her school records in the evening, with a time of 51.21 in the 100 freestyle that qualified for another NCAA B-cut.
It was a stand out weekend for the bullets, who enjoyed sweeps of the top three finishes throughout multiple events. These events included the men’s 500 freestyle, men’s and women’s 200 individual medley, men’s 400 individual medley, women’s 100 breaststroke, women’s 100 backstroke, men’s 1650 freestyle, women’s 200 backstroke, men’s and women’s 100 freestyle, and men’s and women’s 200 breaststroke.
Captain Charlie Cross ʼ24 had a standout weekend, as he won all three of his individual events. When asked about the team’s progress this season, he was quite pleased.
“It’s great to see the team doing so well this year. We’ve been working hard and I’m glad we got to see the fruits of our labor,” said Cross. “I’m excited for our training trip and our meet schedule in the spring. We’ll have a few good tests before the conference meet [in February].”
Yancey, who also swept her solo swims this weekend, is looking forward to the rest of the season as well. She is happy with the team’s performance as well as her own, and had one word for it: “tremendous.” Similar to Cross, she expressed excitement for the team’s Florida training trip in January and the conference championship meet at the end of February.
Head coach Greg Brown only had positive things to say about the team’s performance.
“It was a great meet. The team swam really well and I couldn’t be more pleased,” said Brown. “We had over 100 lifetime or season best times and you can’t really ask for anything more at a mid season invite. The team has really come together and I couldn’t be prouder.”
In January, the team will travel to Florida for training and a dual meet against the University of Scranton as they begin preparations for the conference championship meet that begins February 23rd.
Coach Brown shared his excitement to continue the semester with the team. “Very excited to train hard and have a great second semester. I really believe our best is yet to come.”
