Posted: Dec 04, 2011

Women’s Swimming Places 2nd, Men’s Swimming Places 3rd at GNAC Championship/Invitational

BOSTON, Mass. – The Elms College women's swim team placed second overall and the men's team finished third during the Great Northeast Athletic Conference (GNAC) Championship/Invitational hosted by Simmons College.

Host Simmons won the women's meet with an overall score of 259, while Elms finished second with 193 points. St. Joseph College (Conn.) came in third (164), St. Joseph's College (Maine) (119) finished fourth, Regis College (85) placed fifth, Norwich University tallied 41 points to finish sixth and Husson University rounded out the field with 37 points.

On the men's side, Norwich tabbed first place honors (289), Regis came in second (237), Elms finished third (142) and St. Joseph's College (Maine) rounded out the field with a score of 137.

For the women's team, Elms' junior Tessa Dudunake (Northampton, Mass.) set a pair of GNAC and Simmons pool records with first place finishes in the 50-yard breaststroke and 100-yard individual medley with respective times of 32.46 and 1:04.96. Sophomore Devon DeGrazia (Westport, Mass.) added a GNAC and Elms school record in the 1000-yard freestyle, swimming to a first place time of 11:24.39 and added a second place finish in the 50-yard backstroke (30.15).

Junior Chalis Bird (Windsor, Mass.) captured second place in the 100-yard freestyle (57.47), while sophomore Ashley Kirchner (Dalton, Mass.) secured a second place finish in the 200-yard breaststroke (2:41.49) and third place in the 50-yard breaststroke (34.29).

The 200-yard medley relay team of DeGrazia, Dudunake, Kirchner and Bird also earned first place honors with a time of 1:58.30.

On the men's side, sophomore Keegan Goan (Westbrook, Maine) finished with two second place marks in the 100-yard individual medley (58.20) and the 50-yard backstroke (27.41), while senior Nicholas Provost (Three Rivers, Mass.) notched second place in the 200-yard butterfly with a time of 2:19.42.

Senior Garrett Brune (Lakeville, Mass.) added a fourth place finish in the 200-yard breaststroke (2:35.66) while junior Mark Gehring (West Springfield, Mass.) registered a fourth-best time of 11:06.16 in the 1000-yard freestyle.

Both the men's and women's swim teams return to action on Saturday, Dec. 10 at UMass-Dartmouth at 1:00 p.m.