by Eva Dean Folkert
On Saturday, the Hope College swimming team finished in third place at the two-day Wheaton (Illinois) Invitational, maintaining its position from its Friday results which yielded two schools records by junior Emma Schaefer.
The Flying Dutch finished with a total of 522 points in the seven-team event that was won by NCAA Division I Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
Top finishes on Saturday for Hope were two third-place finishes: Schaefer of DeWitt (Saint Johns HS) with a time of 4:36.96 in the 400-yard individual medley and sophomore Aubrey East of Farmington Hills (North Farmington HS) clocking in at 2:28.14 in the 200-yard breaststroke.
The 200-yard medley relay team of senior Erin Emmert of Grand Blanc (Powers Catholic), Schaefer, freshman Jenna Kloosterman of Hamilton (Hamilton HS) and freshman Sydney Randall of Byron Center (Byron Center HS) took third place with a time of 1:47.60.
Other championship finals finishers were:
Emmert with a seventh-place result in the 400 IM with a time of 4:43.25, and,
Freshman Avery Covert of South Lyon (South Lyon HS) and senior Paula Nolte of Elmhurst, Illinois (York Community HS), taking seventh and eighth respectively in the 200 breaststroke with times of 2:32.23 and 2:32.91.
Freshman Tarah Lang of Marshall, Michigan (Marshall HS) won the 200-yard freestyle consolation hear with a time of 1:56.07.
In the 1650-yard freestyle, senior Paige Kuhn of door (Hamilton HS), sophomore Emma Engle of Kalamazoo (Home School), and sophomore Abigail LaDuke of Holland (West Ottawa HS) finished ninth (18:16.96), 10th (18:26.26), and 11th (18:26.30), respectively.
The Flying Dutch will wait to compete again until after the first of the new year when they host the Michigan-Illinois Quad at the Holland Aquatic Center on Saturday, January 11 at 1 p.m.
