RECAP : RSEQ Cup 1 brings strong Gee-Gees performances
The Gee-Gees swim team opened the RSEQ Cup circuit on Friday night in Montreal and started the season with a second place finish in the women's team standings while the men's team finished third. The combined team standings had Ottawa finishing in third place behind McGill and Laval.
Adelle Yamashita-Ball earned the most points of any Gee-Gees swimmer at the meet; she earned a gold medal in the 400m freestyle, helped the Gee-Gees 4x200m freestyle relay team to a silver medal, and added a fifth place finish in the 200m butterfly. Yamashita-Ball, a third-year psychology student, won the 400 free with a time of 4:16.98, which qualifies for U SPORTS.
Lauren Shearer won the 200m breaststroke handily with a time of 2:33.41 which also sends her to U SPORTS. The second place finisher was over four seconds behind Shearer, a fourth-year Gee-Gee and human kinetics student, at the wall.
Other notable results for uOttawa were Alexandre Perreault taking first place in the 50m butterfly and first year Gee-Gee Hugo Lemesle winning the 200m breastroke; both performances earned U SPORTS qualifying times. Brendan Van Herk, of Cedar Springs, Ont., placed second in the 200m butterfly with first-year Gee-Gee Alex Strople of Oakville, Ont. finishing in third.
Gee-Gees women's rookies Abby McKinley and Rachel McInnes each earned a second place finish. McKinley, a biochemistry student from Grand Bay-Westfield, N.B., claimed second place in a tight finish in the 200m butterfly. Her time of 2:18.03 was one of three U SPORTS qualifying times in that event. McInnes, a human kinetics student from Kelowna, B.C., took silver in the 200m IM by just out-touching two McGill swimmers at the wall for a time of 2:21.37.
Allen Zheng, a health science student from Stittsville, Ont. who was named the 2020-21 men's team MVP, earned a U SPORTS qualifier in the 50 free.
Up next for the Gee-Gees is a Tri-Meet at home against Queen's and Carleton on Oct. 21 before the second RSEQ Cup event at McGill on Oct. 23.