CHICAGO, IL – The University of Rochester women's swimming & diving team jumped back in the pool on Thursday for day two of the 2024 University Athletic Association Swimming & Diving Championships, hosted by the University of Chicago at the Ratner Athletic Center, competing in four preliminaries to qualify for Thursday evening's finals.
 
Thursday's prelims featured the 200-yard freestyle relay, the 500-yard freestyle, the 200-yard individual medley and the 50-yard freestyle, with finals for all of the morning's events, plus the 400-yard medley relay finals to wrap up the evening.
 
Rochester's relay teams got the day started, both qualifying for Thursday evening's relay final. UR's 'A' team of Leah Tang, Sophia Dmytruk, Deniz Yardimci and Adele Hellstrom finished 14th, touching the wall in 1:41.11s, while the 'Jackets' 'B' relay squad of Alicia Albuquerque, Hannah Gentile, Sophie Sweet and Paige Lovelace finished 15th with a time of 1:45.31.
 
Next up in the 500-yard freestyle, Albuquerque paced the Yellowjackets, clocking in at 5:13.41, and falling just seconds short of qualification for Thursday evening's 'C' final, finishing 27th.
 
Four 'Jackets then earned Top-40 results in the 200 IM, with another first-year, Katherine Hegblom, leading the way for UR with a 27th-place finish and a time of 2:12.28.
 
Arianna Pasquella scored a new personal-best time, finishing just behind Hegblom in 28th, touching the wall in 2:12.35, while Leah Tang (2:13.34, 32nd) and Gloria Ng (2:13.40, 33rd) joined Hegblom and Pasquella in the top 35, with Ng setting a new personal best.
 
Jessica Spahn and Morgan Edstrom then wrapped up the Yellowjackets' morning with the 50-yard freestyle, finishing 35th and 38th overall, with times of 24.79 and 24.83 seconds.
 
In Thursday evening's finals, UR's A-relay squad of Edstrom, Yardimci, Tang and Spahn finished seventh in the 200-yard freestyle final, coming in with a time of 1:37.33, while the B-squad of Marissa Carlson, Sweet, Hellstrom and Izzy Stevenson finished 15th, clocking in at 1:40.83.
 
UR's 400-yard medley relay squads wrapped up the evening's finals with another seventh-place result, helping the 'Jackets stay on top of Brandeis in the team standings. Yardimci, Pasquella, Dmytruk and Tang swam Rochester's 'A' relay in the 400 medley, touching the wall in 3:53.67 to finish seventh, while in the 'B' final, Hegblom, Ng, Rachele Bachmann and Spahn combined to swim a 4:00.23 400-yard medley, good for 14th.
 
Through two days at the UAA Championships, the Yellowjacket women sit in seventh place with 222 points, just ahead of Brandeis. Emory leads the pack with 635 team points, while Chicago and NYU rounding out the top three.
 
Day three of the 2024 UAA Championships will kick off on Friday, Feb. 16 at 10:00 a.m. CST with the 400 IM prelims.