WORCESTER, Mass. – Wellesley College swimming & diving jumped from sixth to fifth place out of 10 teams on the second day of the NEWMAC Championships, hosted by WPI.

MIT commands the team competition with 615 points. Springfield College (278) and Wheaton College (266) make up the podium while Coast Guard Academy (265), the Blue (160), Babson (159), WPI (157), Smith College (155), Mount Holyoke (108) and Clark (100) round out the tightly contested field.

Wellesley's 200 Free Relay "A" final team of senior Ariana Mitsuoka (Centennial, Colo.), junior Tracey Liu (Princeton, N.J.), first year Lily Fender (Burnsville, N.C.) and senior Maya Hart (Menlo Park, Calif.) had a season-best time of 1:39.63. In the event's "B" final sophomore Chelsea Park (Long Beach, Calif.), senior Shawfong Hsu (Taipei, Taiwan), junior Julia Reich (Bronxville, N.Y.) and first year Grace Hu (Andover, Mass.) clocked in at 1:46.25, good for ninth.

Junior Emily Richardson (Bedford, N.H.) set a personal best of 5:20.35 and earned seventh in the 500 Free "B" final. Sophomore Chloe Weingarten (Rochester, Minn.) took 24th with a time of 5:25.98. Reich (5:44.51) and classmate Leah Butler (Eugene, Ore.) (5:45.14) finished 43rd and 45th respectively, with Butler setting a personal-best in the event.

Senior Cecilia Cai (Palo Alto, Calif.) topped a personal record in the 200 IM "B" final, capturing second at 2:10.61. Hu also competed in the "B" final, touching at 2:14.03 to place ninth. Hart (2:16.39) and Hsu (2:20.86) notched 26th and 31st in the prelims and each hit a PR. 

 Mitsuoka notched a time of 24.74 to score seventh place in the 50 Free "B" final. Liu narrowly missed the "B" finals, collecting 21st with a 24.91 performance.

To round out the day, the 400 Medley relay team of Fender, Hart, Park and Mitsuoka claimed sixth in the "A" final by breaking the four-minute mark with a 3:58.31. The "B" final squad of Richardson, Weingarten, Hsu, Butler picked up solid points with a third place finish time of 4:07.11 to showcase the Blue's depth in the relay event.

First year Samara Burstein (New York, N.Y.) captured 11th overall in 1-Meter Diving with an 11 dive mark of 344.60.

Day three of three commences at 10:00 AM tomorrow morning with prelims before the 6:00 session of finals.