Lexington, Ky. – The Franklin College Grizzlies outraced the Transylvania swimming and diving team on Friday night in a conference matchup at the William T. Young Center.
Despite a first-place finish from Connor Hood in the lanes and Mackie Redford from the diving board, the Grizzlies showed off their strength in numbers with a 321-122 combined win over the Pioneers to win the dual meet going away. The Pioneer women's team was downed 156-67 while the men's team took a 165-55 defeat to the Grizzlies.
Led by Redford's acrobatics in the one-meter dive, the Pioneers gave the Grizzlies all they could handle across a series of events; the sophomore delivered a winning score of 227.05 in the women's 1-meter dive to win by less than four points over Franklin's Carley Bond to gather points for the Pioneers. Redford followed up her win with a runner-up showing in the women's 3-meter dive, taking second against Bond with a tally of 224.80 to cap off a back-and-forth night of women's diving.
Connor Hood won a dramatic men's 100 backstroke event for the Pioneers in another Friday highlight. With the crowd pushing the decibel levels to its highest of the evening, Hood closed down the final stretch on a tear, winning in 56.89 seconds to touch the wall by a quarter of a second over the second-place finisher from Franklin. Hood added a second-place finish in the men's 200 freestyle (1:52.36), and teamed up with Devon Parker, Kigen Chemirmir, and Jacob Young to record a runner-up finish in the men's 200 medley relay (1:41.56).
The Transylvania women's team finished the night strong as the grouping of Hannah Tapp, Logan Thomas, Mary Grace Thompson, and Sami Monarch delivered a win in the women's 200 freestyle relay, winning by nearly three second in 1:41.76. Tapp also added runner-up finishes in the women's 50 freestyle (25.73 seconds) and the women's 100 freestyle (56.51).
Altogether the Pioneers tabulated 10 runner-up finishes on the night to stand toe-to-toe with the reigning conference champion Grizzlies.
Transylvania returns to action on November 18 – 20, heading north to Oberlin, Ohio to face the Oberlin College Yeomen/Yeowomen for the Oberlin Invitational.
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