Saints swimming and diving won the 2008 Virginia Independent School’s State Championship at the Freedom Aquatics Center on the Campus of George Mason University this past weekend, and their coach, Terry Sue Gault, was named Coach of the Year. This is the second consecutive state championship and coach of the year honors for this outstanding team and their coach.

This championship win is the program’s strongest finish, capturing the title by over 103 points with 16 swimmers and divers in either finals or consolations. The scoring was led by Freshman Kate Bassett who won 2 individual events, the 50 freestyle and the 100 breaststroke. The 400 freestyle relay team of Lacy Jennings, Allie Gullquist, Courtney Kim and Kate Bassett, also placed first. St. Catherine’s had five swimmers finish in the top-16 in the 500 freestyle; however, meet rules allow only four swimmers from a team to compete for points. This meant that Anne Byrd Mahoney could not swim in the 500 freestyle despite her 15^th place qualification and tremendous improvement of dropping 10 seconds over the course of the season.
This great victory included many school records and personal best times:

All- State 200 Medley Relay: 3rd place @ 1:53.51 New School Record
Allie Gullquist
Anne Thomas Steele
Lacy Jennings
Hillary Hardy

All-State 200 Free Relay 2^nd place @ 1:40.20 New School Record
Cabell Doswell
Hillary Hardy
Allie Gullquist
Kate Bassett

All-State 400 Free relay 1^st Place @ 3:38.13 New School Record
Lacy Jennings
Courtney Kim
Cabell Doswell
Kate Bassett

Individual Finishes
200 Freestyle:
4^th Cabell Doswell @ 1:58.62
9^th Nina Vivadelli @ 2:03.53
11^th Kristen deBarros @ 2:06.33
16^th Catherine Morahan @ 2:09.22

200 Individual Medley:
6^th Lacy Jennings @ 2:13.40
9^th Courtney Kim @ 2:18.10
12^th Anne Thomas Steele @ 2:20.73

50 Freestyle:
All-State finish
1^st Kate Bassett @ 24.11 New School Record

100 Butterfly:
All-State 2^nd Lacy Jennings @ 59.04 New School Record
11^th Claire Lockerby @ 1:03.52
14^th Catherine Morahan @ 1:04.89
16^th Anne Finley Vaughan @ 1:05.49

Diving:
7^th Maria Cain 238.5pts.
10^th Sarah Claiborne 226.9pts
12^th Martha Blair Reynolds 204.8pts

500 Freestyle:
4^th Courtney Kim @ 5:28.93
7^th Nina Vivadelli @ 5:34.68
8^th Anne Finley Vaughan @5:34.83
12^th Kristen deBarros @5:36.34

100 Freestyle:
7^th Cabell Doswell @ 56.57
15^th Allie Gullquist @ 58.22

100 Backstroke:
15^th Allie Gullquist @ 1:05.14

100 Breaststroke:
All-State 1^st Place Kate Bassett @ 1:06.35 with All- American consideration
5^th Anne Thomas Steele @ 1:10.59
16^th Jennet Dickenson @ 1:13.61