Roberts, Sweatt each nab national and ECAC weekly swimming honors

December 12, 2006

NORTON, MA- Wheaton College men's and women's swimming and diving standouts Barrett Roberts (Portland, ME/Deering) and Emily Sweatt (Portland, ME/Deering) drew national and regional honors for the weekend ending on Sunday, December 10.

The athletes each nabbed National Collegiate Swimmer-of-the-Week honors from CollegeSwimming.com while corralling such weekly accolades from the Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC). The duo represents just the third and fourth winners from New England in the eight weeks of national awards thus far this season.

Roberts, a senior co-captain and the only All-American in program history, notched a trio of automatic qualifying times for the NCAA Division III Championship at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) while breaking the conference, school and pool records in each the 50- and 100-yard freestyle events.

Roberts initially won the 50-yard freestyle race in 20.54, a time that was 1.10 seconds ahead of the second-place finisher and an NCAA A-cut standard. However, he eclipsed that during the opening leg of the 200 free relay with a time of 20.48, which was 0.25 seconds faster than his prior conference, school and pool records entering the day. During his victorious 100 free showing, Roberts finished in 45.30, which was nearly three seconds ahead of the second-place swimmer. Entering last weekend, the best 50 free time in Division III had been 20.63, which he twice surpassed. Roberts also matched the third-best 100 free mark in the nation.

Just a freshman, Sweatt broke three individual school records and helped a relay team shatter a school mark as the Lyons went 2-0 on Saturday, including downing MIT for the first time since the 1993-94 season. Sweatt broke her own school marks in each the 50-, 100- and 200-yard breaststrokes. She swam a record 32.06 during the first 50 yards of the 100 breast, which she won in a time of 1:08.64. Sweatt was 3.21 seconds faster than her closest competitor. In the 200 breast, she finished in 2:31.50. During the 400-yard medley relay, Sweatt's quartet topped the field in 4:04.25, outdistancing the runner-up foursome by 6.30 seconds and breaking the school record by 4.24 ticks.

The Wheaton women have a 7-2 dual record heading into their semester break, while the men are 4-4. Each team returns to action on January 6 in Balfour Natatorium at 1:00 p.m. against visiting United States Coast Guard Academy, while the women also face Wellesley College.

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