Newburgh, N.Y. – The Mount Saint Mary College Women's Swimming team opened the 2022-23 season in strong fashion on Friday with a 97-85 victory over Bard. The Knights won eight events in the meet with Grace MacHugh (Newburgh, N.Y.) and Cayla Nicholas (Hopewell Junction, N.Y.) each winning a pair of events.
 
The Knights opened and closed the meet in strong form on Friday, winning the 200-yard medley relay to start the evening and taking the 200-yard freestyle race to finish off the victory. The team of Emily Gurskey (Oakville, Conn.), Kitty Masayda (Watertown, Conn.), Nicholas and Stefanie Sommer (Monroe, N.Y.) took the medley race in 2:06.06 with Gurskey, MacHugh, Sommer and Kristen Dwight (Newfield, N.J.) taking the freestyle event in 1:54.00.
 
Individually, MacHugh scored victories in each of the distance freestyle events for the Knights. She posted a win in the 1,000-yard race in 12:30.86 before topping the field in the 500-yard event with a time of 6:02.67.
 
Nicholas also scored a pair of victories in her collegiate debut. She scored a winning time of 26.53 seconds in the 50-yard freestyle before touching out first in the 100-yard breaststroke in a time of 1:22.07.
 
Mount Saint Mary also received victories on Friday from Dwight in the 100-yard freestyle and Sommer in the 100-yard backstroke. Dwight won her race in 2:26.72 with Sommer coming home first in a time of 1:10.03 in the backstroke race. Dwight also added a second place swim for the Mount in the 100-yard freestyle, posting a time of 1:05.40.
 
Masayda and Gurskey also had strong nights for the Mount with each picking up runner-up finishes. Masayda took the second position in the 200-yard individual medley and the 100-yard butterfly with times of 2:56.77 and 1:10.83 with Gurskey touching out second in the 100-yard backstroke in 1:11.34.

At 1-0 overall on the season, Mount Saint Mary returns to action on November 5 when they travel to the College of Staten Island to take on the host Dolphins and league rival Sarah Lawrence.