Waterville, Maine - After opening the season at Amherst last year, the Aqua Mules battled them at home in their pride meet to start the 2022-23 season. Although the Colby Women's team fell 182-101 and the Men's 166-107 there were some key factors to take away from the event.
The Colby Women started off strong taking both the 200 medley relay (
Gabriella Landau,
Kellen Mottl,
Rayna Hata,
Ann Tolan - 1:48.24) good for 20th in the NCAA and the 200 free relay (
Lily Moy, Mottl, Landau, Tolan - 1:37.04) good for eighth in the NCAA. The Men also won the 200 free relay (Brandon Xiong, Neil Mortimer, Ethan Chang, Shaun Kronenwetter - 1:24.53) which is currently ranked 9th in the NCAA. In the 200 medley relay the men took second (Xiong, Jerome Wiater, Mortimer, Kronenwetter - 1:34.68) but good enough to be ranked 29th in the NCAA.
For the individual events, Tolan kept it rolling for the women placing first in the 50 yard freestyle (23.78), which is currently 5th in the NCAA, while Mortimer also kept a fast pace grabbing first in the men's 50 yard freestyle (21.29) which is 30th in the NCAA. Kronenwetter was right behind in second with a time of 21.45. Mortimer finished the evening placing second in the 100 butterfly (50.98) good for 39th in the NCAA. In both the Women's and Men's 200 yard individual medley the Mules took the top four spots. For the Women, Hata came in first (2:20.15) followed by
Abigail Eastman,
Grace Moberg, and
M.C. Yockey. For the Men, Ben Spragg led (1:59.09) followed by Alexander MacLennan, Spencer Cohen, and Anthony Minickiello.
Now Colby will have to rest up and recover quickly as they will head to Hartford, Conn. tomorrow in a meet against Trinity and Hamilton.