The Hillsdale College women's swimming and diving team had a breakout weekend at the Davenport Invitational, posting B-cut times and breaking school records on the way to a third place finish.
Leading the way for Hillsdale was senior Marie Taylor, and the Great Midwest Athletic Conference took notice, awarding her G-MAC Women's Swimmer of the Week honors in an announcement on Monday afternoon. It's the first weekly conference honor of the season and the fourth of her career at Hillsdale.
Taylor did great work over the three day meet in Grand Rapids, Michigan, dominating the sprint freestyle events with victories over competitive fields in both the 50 yard freestyle (23.84) and 100 freestyle (52.13). Both of those times were B-cut NCAA qualifying times, meaning Taylor is now in the pool of athletes who could be selected to swim in those two events at the 2023 NCAA DII Championships in Indianapolis, Indiana in March, if her times are ranked highly enough. She's now swam B-cut times in both events in back-to-back seasons, and has the second-fastest time all-time in both events in Chargers history.
On top of that individual success, Taylor also swam the anchor leg on a school-record setting 400 medley relay, teaming with Megan Clifford, Caroline Holmes and Joanna Burnham to finish in 3:50.00 and beat the previous record set in 2019 by over a second. Taylor also swam on a runner-up 800 freestyle relay (7:40.69), and third place 400 freestyle (3:33.46) and 200 freestyle (1:37.23) relays in a busy and very successful weekend for the senior from Austin, Texas.
Taylor and the Chargers head into winter training with a renewed sense of energy after a strong showing in their final meet of 2022. They'll practice and look to make big improvements over the next six weeks before getting back in action on January 14 with a double-dual against Ashland and Saginaw Valley State.