The University of Rhode Island women’s swim and dive team fell 155-134 against the University of Connecticut on Saturday.
“I think it was a really good opportunity for the girls to see where they are at headed into our midseason meet,” Rhode Island Head Coach Lilli Falconer Deering said. “I was really, really happy with the results from the weekend.”
UConn built up an early lead after winning the first five events. URI second-year swimmer Julianna Tyler broke the streak with a win in the 200-yard butterfly. Third-year Ella Hacker followed up with second place.
Tyler finished with a time of 2:01.71, just three-tenths of a second slower than her program and pool record that she set in the event against the Huskies last season.
Connecticut scored 58 points in the following four events, earning top-two finishes in three races and sweeping the three-meter dive.
Fourth-year swimmer Hannah Benevides responded in the following event as she won the 200-yard breaststroke to give the Rams their second win.
The Huskies secured the meet win in the 12th event with a first, second and fourth-place finish in the 500-yard freestyle. Rhode Island finished the meet with its best performance against UConn since 1994 when it last won.
“We’ve done a really good job of building off of each year after year,” Deering said.
Rhode Island now sits at 2-2 on the season after it split the week with a win against Providence College on Wednesday. The meets marked the first time that the team has had multiple meets in a week this season.
“It’s definitely a different routine and cadence to the week,” Deering said. “We’ve figured out how to work through the weeks to give us the most successful meets we can.”
Next, URI will host the Harold Anderson Invitational for its mid-season meet across four days, from Nov. 21-Nov. 24.
“It’s a great meet,” Deering said. “It mimics our championship format, which I think is a really good prep for our girls.”
The field is highlighted by the University of Vermont, who have won the event in the past two seasons. Other participants include Providence, Stonehill College, the University of Maine, Norwich University, College of the Holy Cross, Assumption University and Wagner College.
“I think that we have a really strong team and we’re going to focus on us and what we can do,” Deering said. “I would love to take back the W on Harold Anderson, but at the end of the day if our girls compete well and we swim times that we haven’t seen in a while I think I’ll be happy with that and call that a win for our team for sure.”
A win in the Harold Anderson Invitational would mark the team’s first top finish in the meet since 2021 when the Rams tied with Vermont. Before that, URI had won the event 14 times in a row.
The Rams will enjoy a short break after the mid-season meet before hosting two Atlantic 10 opponents in La Salle University and the University of Massachusetts Amherst on Dec. 7.
“I’m excited about that one,” Deering said. “I think it is going to give us a really good preview of what is in store for us at the end of the season.”
URI will continue the second half of their season in Kingston, with its next road trip scheduled for Jan. 18, 2025, against Vermont in their second-to-last meet of the regular season.