Women's Swimming & Diving: Aemisegger sets personal bests

Aemisegger, who posted an Ivy League-record time of 4:38.96 only two weeks ago, barely missed the top eight in the preliminary heats, posting the ninth fastest time of the morning at 4:40.01, making her the top seed for the B final in the evening.

Aemisegger did not disappoint, however, as she broke her own school and Ivy record with a time of 4:38.02, which would have placed fifth in the A final. She took control of the race at 250 yards, and a blistering split of 28.19 seconds was enough to outpace Arizona’s Alyssa Anderson at the turn. The Ivy League champion held her lead at the 350-yard mark and was ahead by almost half a second at the 400-yard mark. Anderson, however, put together a brilliant split for the last 100 yards of the race, as she outsplit Aemisegger by a half-second in the second-to-last 50-yard stretch and barely beat her to the wall to win the B final.

After barely missing out on the A final on Thursday morning, Aemisegger made sure not to make any mistakes coming in her best event, the 400-yard IM. Aemisegger has had continued success in this event. She placed second at the NCAA Championships her freshman year and in the top eight at last summer’s Olympic trials.

All of her experience showed during the race, as Aemisegger broke her own school record by more than a second and clinched the top seed in preliminaries with an incredible time of 4:03.19, one second faster than last year’s national champion, Julia Smit.

Aemisegger wasn’t done, though, as she lowered her time by almost another second in the championship final that night to set a new school record of 4:02.47. Aemisegger turned at the wall after the first 100 yards in fourth, but she then fell behind to eighth after 200 yards. She clawed her way back to fifth and had an impressive split in the last 100 yards to finish fourth.

Giarra started Thursday morning with a great performance in the one-meter event, picking up 270.2 points during preliminaries. She fell just short of making the top 16, however, by less than half a point and was unable to compete in the evening events. Giarra started her morning program with a forward single-somersault single-twist free and picked up a high net score of 19.5, but because hers was a dive with a degree of difficulty of only 2.2, she only picked up a total of 42.9 points. Her best dive of the morning was a reverse single-somersault single-twist free, which had the highest degree of difficulty of any of the dives on her program. Giarra picked up 48.10 points on this dive, 1.3 points more than any of her other dives that morning.

The two Tigers had their last chances to pick up All-America honors on Saturday, and both rose to the challenge as they had brilliant performances in their respective events. Giarra was up first in the one-meter event, seeking to put in a top-16 performance to qualify for the final that night. The two-time Diver of the Meet at the Ivy League Championship used her experience to remain focused throughout her program, which included a brilliant reverse double-somersault tuck, a dive with a 2.8 degree-of-difficulty multiplier, that scored her 61.6 points. Giarra finished 12th, securing her first All-America honor and a spot in the evening’s final.

Saturday evening saw two great performances from the Princeton duo, as each delivered in spectacular fashion. Aemisegger, who came into the meet with the sixth fastest time in the nation, turned on the afterburners early in the 1,650-yard freestyle event and never looked back. Aemisegger separated herself from the field early on and swam beside Georgia’s Wendy Trott, who got out to an early lead and held on to it throughout the entire race. Aemisegger stayed close the entire way, posting another school record with a time of 15:50.60.

Giarra closed off evening competition with her best performance of the meet in the three-meter event. Two of her dives in the six-dive program netted her more than 60 points, helping her move ahead in the standings and clinch 11th.

Aemisegger, who is on track to become one of the most prolific swimmers in Princeton history, has now accumulated 10 All-America honors in her collegiate career. Giarra, who finished her spectacular four years of collegiate diving in the best way possible, picked up her first All-America honor, and she will go down in history as one of Princeton’s best divers.

The team will build off this performance going into next season, as it hopes to reclaim the Ivy League title from a deep Harvard squad.