INDIANAPOLIS – Junior
Maeve Kelley finished third in the nation in the 200-yard butterfly as the Amherst College women's swimming and diving team racked up three All-America finishes on the third day of the NCAA Division III Championships on Friday at Indiana University Indianapolis.
Kelley earned First Team All-America honors for the third time in her career, swimming a time of 2:00.24 to set a new Amherst record in the 200 fly, breaking the previous mark of 2:00.48 set by Marie Fagan '22 at the 2022 NCAA Championships. Kelley was the top finisher from the NESCAC and the top non-senior in the event with her best-ever career finish at the NCAA Championships. She notched the best finish in the 200 fly for a NESCAC swimmer since 2019. First-year
Penny Lazar also competed in the 200 fly and posted a time of 2:04.61 to finish in 18th place.
The Mammoths also swam to All-America finishes in both of the evening's relays. Kelley and Lazar were back in the pool alongside first-year
Ava Insteness and junior
Paige Arnold to finish 10th in the 800-yard freestyle relay and claim Second Team All-America honors with a time of 7:27.48. It was the first career All-America finish for first-years Insteness and Lazar, the fifth for Arnold, and the eighth – and second of the night – for Kelley. Amherst has now finished in the top 16 in the 800 free relay at 22 straight NCAA Championship meets.
Amherst opened the night with an All-America performance in the 200-yard medley relay as first-year
Katy Niziol, senior
Joline Fong, junior
Lucy Smith and sophomore
Sydney Thompson clocked in at 1:43.11 to finish in 15th place. Niziol and Fong were making their NCAA Championships debuts in the event, while Smith earned her seventh career All-America honor and Thompson picked up her second of the week as the quartet swam to Amherst's best finish in the event since 2018.
At the end of the evening with 14 of 20 events completed, the Mammoths had tallied 48 points to move up into a tie for 16th place in the team standings. NYU leads the meet with 375 points.
The national championship meet concludes on Saturday (March 21) with trials beginning at 10 a.m. and finals at 6 p.m. The final day of competition will see Thompson, Arnold and Insteness competing in the 100-yard freestyle; Lazar swimming the 1650-yard freestyle, senior
Donna Zhang and first-year
Brooke Ronan returning to the diving boards for the three-meter competition and Amherst closing the meet with the 400-yard freestyle relay.
* Amherst record
