The men’s and women’s swim & dive teams threw down tremendous showings in the pool during the 12th annual Ranger Invitational on the way to each team clinching its seventh straight title.
On the men’s side, Drew rounded out their performance with 382 points, topping Elizabethtown College (213), FDU-Florham (80) and Moravian University (3).
The Rangers proved to be an unstoppable force, with the men’s team taking down 13 meet records, 10 school records and three conference records and effectively rewriting Drew’s record board over the course of the two-day competition.
The men’s 200-freestyle relay, made up of Nicholas Heinio-Widell (‘27), Brendan Burkett (‘26), Finn Armitt (‘24) and Hayden Koh (‘25) broke the Landmark Conference, school and meet records twice in one day, first with a time-trial in the morning before improving their own time by almost a second that same afternoon. The second performance landed the group an NCAA B cut on top of the broken records.
Two more relays broke conference records: the 200-medley relay, made up of Koh, Gabe Spivak (‘26), Armitt and Heinio-Widell, and the 800-freestyle relay, made up of Armitt, Heinio-Widell, Yan Zheng Lew (‘25) and Koh.
Leading the way for the men was Heinio-Widell, who in his first major competition for the Rangers turned in an astonishing performance that saw him win all eight of his events and contribute to the fall of nine school records.
Heinio-Widell put up record-setting times in each of his individual races, including breaking the oldest record on the board in his 100-breaststroke. His time of 56.79 shattered the previous record of 59.29, set in 2017.
Heinio-Widell also raced on all five of Drew’s top relays, each of which took first place and established new school and meet records.
Other set of top individual competitors for the Rangers during the meet were Koh, Lew, Kyle Talerico (‘27) and Liam Gregory (‘27); all four set new meet records, with Lew breaking the school record in the 400-individual medley as well.
Koh took first in the 100-butterfly with a time of 48.37, earning an NCAA B cut and narrowly missing his own school record. Meanwhile, Talerico and Gregory both established new Ranger Invitational records in the distance events, with Talerico winning the 500-freestyle and Gregory cruising to first in the 1650-freestyle.
Complementing the swim team’s dominating performance, Drew’s divers also made themselves known in the competition. Jonathan Benowitz (‘24) took first on the one-meter, while Santiago Rubio Marrodan (‘27) won the three-meter competition.
On the women’s side, the Rangers secured an equally decisive victory. Drew finished the weekend with 290 points, racing past Bryn Mawr College (183), Elizabethtown College (181), FDU-Florham (105) and Moravian University (5).
The women’s team rewrote the record board as well, breaking three school records and one meet record.
Sam Trodick (‘25) led the way with two new records for Drew. Trodick won the 100-breaststroke in a time of 1:07.34, breaking the previous record of 1:08.04 set just last season. She went on to win the 200-breaststroke in a time of 2:25.79, breaking her own record by nearly two seconds.
Amira Hadri (‘24) also put up a new record—as the lead-off in the 200-freestyle relay, she lowered her own school record in the 50-freestyle and set a new meet record with her time of 24.27.
Aside from their record-breaking swims, the Rangers racked up a number of first-place finishes, winning 14 out of the 18 events during the competition.
Trodick and Hadri each turned in three individual wins, with Trodick claiming the 200-individual medley in addition to the breaststroke events and Hadri winning the 50-freestyle, 100-freestyle and 100-backstroke.
Other eye-catching races included Katerina Poulathas’s (‘25) victory in the 1650-freestyle, which she won by a full minute, and Emilie Tobin’s (‘25) narrow win in the 400-individual medley, as she caught up on the last stretch to out-touch her competitor by a mere .08 seconds.
The women’s team also turned in a tremendous showing in the relays, winning four out of the five races.
The relay team of Hadri, Trodick, Poulathas and Kaitlyn Zayle (‘26) secured decisive victories in both the 200- and 400-medley relays. Drew snagged a win in the 200-freestyle relay as well, led by Hadri’s record-breaking first leg and followed by a team of Trodick, Charlotte Wells (‘24) and Zayle.
The Rangers’s 800-freestyle relay, consisting of Poulathas, Zayle, Tobin and Wells, tied for first with Elizabethtown with an exciting late comeback. After falling behind in the first three legs, Wells closed a two-second gap to tie the relay, with both teams finishing in a time of 8:05.58.
For the divers, Chandler Straub (‘27) took first in both the one-meter and three-meter competitions.
The Ranger Invitational marked the completion of this semester’s racing for the Rangers; the swim & dive teams are now off from competition until they return to take on Goucher College in January.
Charlotte Wells is a senior double-majoring in English with a concentration in writing communications and French, as well as minoring in humanities.
Featured image courtesy of the Drew Rangers website.
