The Marist women's swimming and diving team (2-1, 2-0 MAAC) earned a decisive 172-126 victory over Fairfield on Saturday afternoon in a home meet at the McCann Natatorium. Victories in five of the first six events shot the Red Foxes out to an early lead and they would never look back. Overall, the Red Foxes won 11 of 16 events on the afternoon, including two individual wins each by senior Kate Conard (East Setauket, N.Y.), sophomore Kimberly Tobias (San Jose, Calif.) and freshman Bethany Powhida (Delmar, N.Y.).
Powhida was the first of the Red Foxes to come out victorious as she swam to a first place finish in the 1000-yd freestyle with a time of 10:41.62, nearly 14 seconds clear of her closest competitor. Her second win came in the day's second distance event, the 500-yd freestyle with a time of 5:16.38. Powhida cleared second-place by 4.71 seconds.
Marist's regular dominant distance swimmer Kate Conard took to the pool in two different events on Saturday as she swam in and won the 200-yd butterfly and 200-yd backstroke. She scorched the field in the butterfly with a 6.48 second victory at 2:08.89. She improved her margin of victory in the 200-yd backstroke with a 9.26 advantage with her final time of 2:04.06.
The Red Foxes' third multi-event winner was Tobias, who swept the diving events with a 250.12 performance in the 1-meter board and 263.02 total in the 3-meter board.
Other winners for Marist on the afternoon included; senior Erica Vitale (Sterling, Conn.) juniors Maddie Arciello (Missoula, Mont.) and Emily Miles (Long Valley, N.J.) and sophomore Shannon Toal (Rye Brook, N.Y.).
Vitale took the 400-yd IM with an 8.22 second victory at 4:37.97, while Arciello won the hotly-contested 100-yd backstroke race at 1:00.72. The top four finishers in the event finished within 1.53 seconds of each other.
Miles and Toal won freestyle events as the junior took first in the 100-yd race at 55.78, while the sophomore finished at 2:00.02 in the 200-yd race.
In relay action, the team of Arciello, Bonnie Orr (Fresno, Calif.), Katie Larkin (Huntington, N.Y.) and Sarah Wagner (Rockaway, N.J.) finished first in the 200-yd medley at 1:53.09.
The Red Foxes will face their second consecutive MAAC opponent next weekend as they host Rider on Saturday, November 17 at 12 p.m.
