The Emory University women's swimming and diving team were crowned conference champions for the 23rd consecutive meet and 29th time overall as the 34th annual University Athletic Association came to an end Saturday night in Atlanta, GA.
Emory scored 2,128 points as a team across the four days of competition, the most in a UAA meet since 2011 and the second-most points in a single meet in team history. Second place Chicago finished with 1,559 points and NYU was third at 1,421.5, the only schools to score over 1,000 at the meet.
In total the Eagles finished with 14 event titles after adding four more Saturday night and tallied 34 All-UAA performances. In addition, Emory set UAA meet records in seven different events including seeing one more fall on the final day action.
Senior Taylor Leone was honored as the Women's Swimmer of the Year following an outstanding three days of swimming. Leone rounded out her meet as the runner-up in the 100 Freestyle at 50.67 on Saturday and helped capture the 400 Freestyle Relay crown with Sammie Kass, Caroline Maki and Cailen Chinn with a time of 3:23.27.
At the meet, Leone was a conference champion in six of the seven events she competed in and rewrote the UAA record book in five of those events: 50 Free, 100 Fly, 200 Free Relay, 200 Medley Relay and 400 Medley Relay.
The Eagles' first event title of the final evening came from sophomore Megan Jungers as she set the UAA record in the 200 Back with the only sub-2:00 time in the championship final at 1:57.66.
The win helped put a stamp on Jungers receiving the Women's Sophomore Rookie of the Year, an award given to an athlete who missed out on competing during their true freshman season due to COVID-19. To go along with her 200 Back victory, Jungers was a runner-up in the 100 Fly and 100 Back and helped set UAA records in the 200 and 400 Medley Relays.
Maki and sophomore Fiona Arwood added to the team's hardware catalog Saturday night with Maki besting Leone in the 100 Free with a winning mark of 50.40 and Arwood following suite in the 200 Breast, touching at 2:16.97.
Freshman Jada Chatoor led off the finals session with a time of 17:11.69 in the 1650 Free, earning All-UAA honors with a third place finish. The Eagles totaled seven more All-UAA swims on Saturday as Emory went 1-2-3 in three straight events in the 200 Back, 100 Free and 200 Breast.
Junior Savannah Sowards and sophomore Leaya Ma were second and third in the 200 Back at 2:01.38 and 2:01.58 while senior Edie Bates and junior Sarah Byers won silver and bronze in the 200 Breast with times of 2:18.39 and 2:18.89. Kass was a third place finisher in the 100 Free at 50.73 as was senior Allie Dixon in the 200 Fly, posting a time of 2:02.87.
The final award of the night was bestowed upon Head Coach Jon Howell and his staff of Cindy Fontana, John Petroff and Bob Hackett as they were named the Women's Coaching Staff of the Year, representing the 12th time Howell and his staff as earned the women's award.
Emory is back in the pool next weekend with the Royal Open in one last tune up before next month's NCAA Championships.