Friday Finals

Friday Finals
...Dana Kirk...

In a meet like the NCAA Championships you have to get it done in the morning. Two teams really got it done this morning, Arizona and Texas A&M, setting themselves up to make huge strides in points tonight. Arizona should distance themselves from the field by quite a bit, while Texas A&M, who finished a program high 8th last season should be able to put themselves into a very comfortable third position, they may even enter into a fight with Auburn for second.

200 Medley Relay
Arizona (Degolia, Chandler, Jackson, Turner) goes three for three so far in the relay rewriting the record books yet again with a 1:35.29, winning the race by a clear body length. Arizona was followed Stanford (1:37.63), Texas A&M(1:37.72), Cal (1:38.07) AU (1:38.35), UGA (1:38.79), Florida (1:38.98), and Indiana .

400 IM
Julia Smit took the lead at the 150 and never looked back winning her first NCAA Championship in 4:02.41, just missing the NCAA meet record. Defending champion Ava Ohlgren took second in 4:04.07 followed by A. Kukors (4:04.82).

100 Fly
Christine Magnuson took it out fast and came back faster as she went the second fastest time in NCAA history with a 50.70. She was followed by defending champion Dana Vollmer (51.32) and Hailey Degolia (51.59), who made another big jump up for Arizona.
CAL finished 2-3-4 in the consolation finals to make up some points as going into tonight it looked like the dogfight for third would involve Stanford, Texas A&M, and CAL (who went 2-3-4 in the relay earlier).

200 Free
Caroline Burckle is on fire and she showed it for the second night in a row going a 1:43.10. In a reversal of sorts, it was Nymeyer (the third of three defending NCAA champion to take second tonight) that came charging down the second 100 finishing just off of Burckle in a 1:43.33. In third was Texas A&M's Julia Wilkinson (1:43.64).

100 Breast
Like predicted Rebecca Soni came from behind to take the event in 59.18, she was followed by Big 10 champion Jillian Tyler (59.87) and Annie Chandler (59.98).  Tyler will be fully rested at next month's Canadian trials.  In the consolation finals Denby of Auburn broke the minute barrier going a 59.99

100 Back
Arizona's Hailey Degolia took the lead early with her deadly underwater work, but it was Florida's Gemma Spofforth got her hand on the wall first in 51.79. Degolia finished with 51.89, while Kateryna Zubkova was third (52.02)

800 Free relay
Arizona shocked the world coming from lane 8 to win the 800 free relay in an NCAA meet record 6:58.69, the second fastest time in NCAA history. Texas A&M closed a great day with a second place finish (6:59.50 , while Cal came home third (7:01.09).

Finals scores stand at...
Arizona- 361
Auburn- 244
Texas A&M- 227
Stanford- 212
California- 203