The 12th-ranked Hope College women’s swimming and diving team added another MIAA championship to its collection on Saturday evening at Calvin University, winning its fifth straight league meet in historic fashion.
The Flying Dutch led wire-to-wire over the weekend and amassed a league-record 1,170 points while winning by a margin of 268 points. The previous record was 1,131, recorded by Hope in 2023.
The MIAA Championship is the 27th overall for Hope, which is the most among MIAA schools.
Senior Sara Kraus (Rockford, Michigan / Rockford HS), junior Laurel Wasiniak (Northville, Michigan / Northville) and freshman Emme D’Errico (Farmington Hills, Michigan / Farmington) captured individual event titles for Hope. The Flying Dutch also posted a relay win to finish the weekend with gold medals in 13 of the meet’s 20 events.
Hope also became the first MIAA school to sweep all five relay events in the conference meet since Calvin in 2007.
Kraus – who won three events during the weekend to receive Most Valuable Swimmer honors – took home gold in the 200 backstroke for the fourth consecutive year with a time of 1:58.29. She became the first MIAA swimmer to win four consecutive titles in the 100 and 200 backstroke events since Hope’s Lori Gano accomplished the feat in 1988-91.
Her time in the 200 back is the fastest in NCAA Division III this season.
Kraus also earned Most Valuable Swimmer honors for the third time in her career and finishes her league meet career with 10 individual MIAA titles. She joins Dawn Hoving (1992, 1993, 1994) and Shelly Schafer (1987, 1988, 1989) as the only Hope swimmers to win the award three times. Kraus also received the accolade in 2022 and 2023.
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