Garber's Carly Lipinski left everyone in her wake during the 500 yard freestyle event.
(MyBayCity Photo by John Keuvelaar)

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Lady Duke Swimmers Keep Undefeated Stroke Downing Caro 106-79

Carly Lipinski Laps Field in 500 Freestyle

September 23, 2012
By: John Keuvelaar

It takes good opponents to bring out the best in your team and that is just what happened Tuesday night as the Garber Girls Swim team took on and defeated always tough Caro. Garber won the 2011 meet between these two teams by one point. This fact was not lost on either team as the importance of not just winning the race but finishing high would help your team collect points. This helped lead to exciting battles for second, third and fourth positions as well as for first. Caro started the events strong by capturing the opening 200 yard medley relay. For those new to the sport, this relay encompasses all four swimming strokes: back, breast, butterfly and freestyle strokes. Garber was able to capture the second, third and fifth positions to help their cause.

Garber's Carly Lipinski showed her Freestyle dominating stroke as she captured the 200 yard Free Style with teammate Heather Watson coming in second place.

Caro responded by capturing first and second in the next event, the 200 yard Individual Medley. Ann Starling won this event and won the only other event for Caro when she later stroked the winning time in the 100 yard Butterfly.

But Garber showed they have a strong team and was not going to let one point decide the meet. Emma MacBride captured back to back individual victories to help spring board if you will the Lady Dukes on their way. First Ms MacBride outdistanced everyone in the 50 yard freestyle. Then she stepped out of the pool and put on a nice show of twists, tucks and entry as she won the one meter diving competition.

Garber's Mary Levengood got it rolling when she won the 100 yard freestyle by over two body lengths to get the Lady Dukes started. But it was Carly Lipinski who pulled off what was probably one of the most impressive wins of the night.

The 500 yard freestyle is as much about endurance as it is anything else. Ten full trips of down and back make up this event. At the end of her second full trip, Ms Lipinski had a half a pool length lead and made it a full pool length (25 yards) by the 200 yard mark. By the 7th round trip or 350 yard mark, Lipinski had caught the field and was now 50 yards in the lead. She finished the 500 yards in 6:01:49 some 51 seconds ahead of her closest competitor. Meanwhile there was quite a battle for second place as Caro bested Garber's Heather Watson by just over 3 seconds.

If swimming 500 yards wasn't enough, Lipinski teamed up with her fellow Dukes, Emma MacBride, Mary Levengood and Mia Hedert. Together, the four won the next event, the 200 yard freestyle relay. Garber finished off the final three events with first place finishes in all three. Elizabeth Morand used her turning skills to help win the 100 yard backstroke. Mary Levengood caught her opponent by the first turn and pulled away for her win in the 100 yard breaststroke. Then Lipinski, Watson, Morand and Levengood ended the night in dominating fashion as the "A" team grabbed the final 400 yard freestyle relay to conclude the night.