Rowan Women’s Swimming is fresh off of a third-place finish at the Franklin & Marshall Invitational, which took place from Nov. 17 to Nov. 19.
According to head coach Brad Green, the meet helped boost the confidence level of the team and will help spark improvement across the roster.
“I think overall, it was a really great step forward in the season for us, a lot of our best times, and season bests,” Green said. “A lot of positive things out of this competition, which I was looking for in terms of building momentum, keeping everything moving forward, and setting us up for later in the season.”
Ella Pennington, who has had an impressive start to her sophomore season, won the 100-yard backstroke (56.92), and the 200-yard backstroke (02:02:59). Pennington also placed second in the 100-yard butterfly (57:25) and fourth in the 200-yard IM (02:08:18).
Aside from her performance, Pennington was quick to praise her teammates for how they competed against the competition in the meet.
“With the women’s team placing third overall and for our first time at that invitational, it was amazing to see,” Pennington said. “I think the other teams put up a challenge and they pushed us to do our best, and I think we met that challenge really well.”
Pennington, who was named to the NCAA All-American Second Team last season, is always primarily focused on what she and her teammates are able to accomplish as a team.
“I feel like the start of this year has been really good. I think I have represented the hard work that my coaches and teammates put in,” Pennington said. “It’s been an honor to represent the Rowan women’s swimming team at the beginning of this year.”
Green has embraced a new role this season of coaching Pennington with a close eye, and he’s looking forward to seeing what she’ll do throughout the rest of the year.
“While I coached on the women’s team last year, I focused primarily with the sprinters,” Green said. “So this season’s been the first time that I’ve worked this closely with her, and I think we’re just starting to see the little improvements on technique. She’s starting to put it all together and I’m pretty excited for what she’s going to do in the second half.”
A big sign of improvement for the team overall came from sophomore Trisha Lau, as she placed fourth in the 200 (01:58:02) and 500 free (05:14:33).
“Obviously, [Pennington] was faster, but in terms of improvement, that was probably the best performance Trisha had across the board,” Green said.
Looking ahead for the Profs, their next meet is a matchup with Ramapo (1-3) and Montclair State (6-1), both on Dec. 8.
“We gave them a few days off over Thanksgiving break, I think was a good period for them to reset both physically and mentally,” said Green. “I always feel coming out of a three-day, that you have some more concrete things that you’re working on, we’ve been hitting them in practice already. We’ll continue to build on to that heading into Montclair and Ramapo.”
“We’re already working on the things that we can improve on from our invitational,” Pennington said. “As a whole, we think our legs can be stronger. So we’re already working on that, it’s just building up the little things, and the tiny mechanics, so that we’re ready to meet the competition against Montclair and Ramapo.”
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