Swimwomen leave Red Flash in wake

It is usually a pretty good thing when everything goes according to plan.

The Penn State women's swim team had hoped to highlight some different swimmers and pick up a relatively easy win yesterday against St. Francis.

The Lady Lions (6-4, 1-4 Big Ten) were able to accomplish both those things as some younger swimmers were given a chance to shine in Penn State's convincing 124-74 defeat of the Red Flash.

Penn State won all but one of the individual events, and the opening 200-yard medley relay in its fifth consecutive non-conference victory.

The relay team of Elissa Bellairs, Carmen Kondra, Karna Lorhammer and Erica Van Tassel finished first with a time of 1-minute, 55.61 seconds.

The freshman swimmers did extremely well against the Red Flash. Brooke Gilliland won the 100-yard butterfly with a time of 1:01.91, Jill Wilkinson won the 100-yard freestyle at 54.98 and State College's Kristen Grigor won the 500-yard freestyle with a 5:32.03.

The sophomore class also pitched in with Sarah Jay taking first in the 1000-yard freestyle with a time of 10:29.61 and Tasha Kulka winning the 100-yard backstroke with a 1:01.19.

Not to be outdone, senior captain Van Tassel won the 50-yard freestyle with a 25.10 and was part of the winning relay team.

Penn State will have more than a week before its next meet in Princeton, Jan. 31.

--by Frank C. D'Amico