The Hopkins women’s swim team took third place at the 2014 Bluegrass Mountain Conference Championship, accumulating 1245.5 points during the three-day event. The Lady Jays made the trip down to Charlotte, N.C. to compete against some of the better Division III schools in the region. Given the fierce competition, the Lady Jays performed incredibly well, setting numerous individual, team and school program records. Junior Ana Bogdanovski led the way for the Jays with three individual titles, earning herself a share of the record for most individual titles in one championship meet. Bogdanovski grabbed an impressive win in the 100m Free on the last night of the meet, to go along with victories in the 50m and 200m Free.
In addition to those inspiring individial achievements by Bogdanovski, Senior Kylie Ternes took fourth place in the same event with a time of 51.43, as classmate Sarah Rinsma claimed seventh with a time of 52.08. Senior Taylor Kitayama’s time of 1:58.59 in the 200m Back was good enough for silver and the second fastest time in school history. Kitayama finishes her BMC postseason career with a school record 17 overall conference titles (seven individual, 10 relay). Rinsma will go out with 14 conference titles (four individual, 10 relay) — the second most in school history behind Kitayama.
The seniors relay titles at the meet include a time of 3:23.12 in the 400m Free Relay — the second fastest in school history. As the anchor on the relay, Bogdanovski was able to come from behind on the last leg to beat out Kristin Diemer of Queens University to give the Blue Jays the title. The quarter of Rinsma, Bogdanovski, Kitayama and Sammi Fox were able to bring home the title in the 800m Free Relay with a time of 7:23.72. Junior Maggie Storm took home the bronze in 200m Breast with a time of 2:21.29, which is an NCAA provisional time and the sixth fastest in school history.
Freshman Lindsay Kriz opened up the final day of the meet with a fifth place finish in the 1650m Free. Success continued for the freshmen in the last individual event of the weekend when freshman Abby Brown took bronze in the 200m Fly, leading three Blue Jays who finished in the top eight. She clocked a time of 2:04.90, good enough for second fastest in school history. She was followed by classmates Shirley Chan and Keri Gawlik who finished in fourth and eighth place with times of 2:05.62 and 2:08.26 respectively.
By the end of the Jays’ impressive weekend, six conference titles were claimed and four school records were broken. Bogdanovski saw the weekend as a success for the entire team, despite the inconvenient weather conditions. “Everyone performed really well, given the conditions. The meet was delayed a couple of days and we had to go a day without swimming right before the meet. All things considered, there were many fantastic swims this weekend,” Bogdanovski said.
As far as the rest of the season goes, Bogdanovski made it clear that the team is far from finished. “We'd like to win some more relays at NCAAs this year, and place higher than fifth, which is the highest in Hopkins history. We have a very strong team this year and I look forward to seeing what we can do.”
This was an excellent weekend for Hopkins as they placed well in several different events. The Bluegrass Championships marked the last major event for the Lady Jays before the NCAA Championships in late March. For those members of the team who do qualify, the NCAA Championships will take place in Indianapolis over March 19-22. The motivation of the team to continue to perform at a high level will give them exactly what they need heading into playoff contention.
