INDIANAPOLIS – Three Mammoths earned All-America finishes as the Amherst College women's swimming and diving team competed on the second day of the NCAA Division III Championships on Thursday at Indiana University Indianapolis.
First-year
Brooke Ronan placed 11th and senior
Donna Zhang finished 16th in one-meter diving and junior
Maeve Kelley was 15th in the 100-yard butterfly. All three earned Second Team All-America honors, awarded to the 9th-place through 16th-place finishers in each event.
Ronan tallied an 11-dive score of 423.10, qualifying for the consolation final and placing 11th overall, while Zhang earned a total score of 384.40 to finish 16th in the nation. Ronan and Zhang were the top two finishers from the NESCAC at nationals after previously claiming the top two spots in the event at the NESCAC Championships. Zhang claimed her second career All-America honor while Ronan was making her NCAA Championships debut in her rookie season. This is now the seventh straight NCAA Championship at which an Amherst diver has earned All-America honors.
Kelley swam a time of 55.47 seconds in the 100 fly trials to qualify for the consolation final, where she followed up with a time of 55.98 seconds to finish 15th in the nation and earn her sixth career All-America honor and first in the 100 fly. Junior
Paige Arnold also competed in the trials and placed 23rd with a time of 55.76 seconds.
Three Mammoths competed in the trials of the 200-yard freestyle. First-year
Ava Insteness placed 26th in 1:52.18 and classmate
Penny Lazar made her NCAA Championships debut with a 36th-place finish, touching in 1:53.07. Sophomore
Sydney Thompson clocked in at 1:53.80 to place 39th in the nation.
The Mammoths placed 25th in the 200-yard freestyle relay as Thompson, Arnold, senior
Diane Koo and junior
Lucy Smith finished in 1:35.44 for Amherst's best finish in the event since 2022.
The Mammoths have tallied 14 points in the team standings and sit in 25th place through 9 of 20 events. NYU leads the meet with 260 points.
The national championship meet continues for two more days in Indianapolis with trials beginning at 10 a.m. and finals at 6 p.m. each day. Friday's schedule will feature Kelley and Lazar in the 200-yard butterfly, the event in which Kelley finished fourth in the nation last year, as well as the 200-yard medley relay and the 800-yard freestyle relay.
