The repeat is sweet. After another dominating final day in San Antonio, the Northern Arizona swimming & diving team can call themselves back-to-back champions after rising above their competition to win their second consecutive Western Athletic Conference championship. Also for the second straight year, head coach Andy Johns was named the WAC Women’s Coach of the Year.
The ‘Jacks began Saturday with a 95-point lead over New Mexico State and that lead only grew over the course of the Day 4 as NAU finished with 666 points, 127 more than the Aggies.
“I’m super proud of all of our girls, not just this week but all year long,” Johns said. “For us to come in here with so many newcomers and being a young team; for us to start (the meet on Wednesday) with a disqualification and Caitlin Wright being sick, they persevered and stayed the course. Their attitudes are amazing and I’m just really happy for them.”
With the team lead in hand after three days, the Lumberjacks rode the strength of their team depth yet again on the final day, placing a conference-high 14 athletes in the finals following another outstanding morning preliminary session. NAU qualified at least three representatives in each of the four events in the morning and added two more in the mile freestyle.
The last session of the championships began with the 1,650 freestyle and the Lumberjacks again flexed their muscles in the event. After three consecutive bronze medals in the event, senior Caitlin Wright broke through in her final race of her career. Dealing with an illness all week, Wright recorded her best mile finish with a time of 16:46.31, which earned her a silver medal. Junior Kendall Brown, the two-time defending champion in the event, gave NAU two-thirds of the medalists as she posted a time of 16:49.66.
NAU’s best performance in the morning came in the 200 breaststroke where it claimed three of the top eight spots. Sophomore Urte Kazakeviciute qualified third and repeated as conference runner-up in the event with a season-best time of 2:15.65. Freshman Melanie Harris and junior Monica Pruett each picked up their third championship swim of this year’s meet placing fifth and eighth respectively. Harris posted a finals time of 2:16.79, which ranks fifth all-time in school history, and Pruett recorded a lifetime-best in the prelims at 2:19.03.
The morning after setting a new 100 fly school record in winning the gold medal, freshman Alina Staffeldt advanced to the 200 fly final with the third-fastest prelim time of 2:01.46 and collected a bronze medal with a finals time of 2:00.75. In her first conference championships, Staffeldt left with the fastest 100 fly time and second-fastest 200 fly time in school history. Fellow freshman Kimmy Richter also secured a spot in the top eight alongside Staffeldt and placed eight while junior Eva Pold made the consolation final and finished 13th.
Freshman Roni Houck sprinted her way into the NAU top five all-time performances in the 100 free in the prelims with a time of 51.33, which ranked second after the morning before placing fourth overall. Nabbing two important scoring spots, freshman Claire Hammond and junior Trinity Frazee both posted season-best times to sneak into the consolations in the last two positions in 15th and 16th and the pair exceeded expectations in the final. Frazee shot up to 10th with a time of 51.63 and Hammond finished 13th overall with a time of 52.31.
In the 200 backstroke, sophomore Sara Lenhoff garnered a silver medal with a season-best time of 2:00.26, earning medalist honors after just missing out last year in fourth place. She also moved up two spots from her preliminary ranking of fourth. NAU added two additional swimmers in the consolation final with sophomore Jori Lindquist and junior Lindsay Clark-Warren placing 11th and 12th respectively. Lindquist posted a season-best time of 2:03.72 in the finals and Clark-Warren, who scored points for NAU for the first time in her career, clocked a time of 2:04.80.
Staffeldt, Frazee, Hammond and Houck teamed up for the team’s final relay as the ‘Jacks finished the meet with a fifth-place finish in the 400 free relay. The quartet posted a time of 3:27.08, seven seconds faster than NAU’s seed time.
“The girls did the job today,” Johns said. “They gained a lot of confidence from Friday and being ahead, they knew they needed to do the job again this morning. Our breaststrokers came up big again putting three in the finals and Caitlin’s mile tonight was one of the most impressive swims knowing where she was earlier this week from a health standpoint. Everyone did a great job and we’re very proud of their accomplishments.”
For the second straight season, all 20 scoring Lumberjacks contributed to the win by reaching either the championship or consolation final in at least one event. The 20 Lumberjacks combined for 47 finals appearances with 30 coming in the ‘A’ heats.
On the final night alone, NAU collected five medals with at least one medal in four of the five individual events. The Lumberjacks’ medal count for the four-day championships was 17 with nine different athletes bringing back at least one individual medal with them from Texas.
Junior Chelsea Jackson (3-meter diving) and Staffeldt (100 fly) won the team’s only gold medals. Brown earned three individual medals while Jackson, sophomore Alexa Geiger, Staffeldt and Lenhoff collected multiple medals.
Texas may be the Lonestar State, but after swimming and diving past their competition this weekend, NAU’s 2014 WAC trophy won’t be lonely anymore because the Lumberjacks are bringing back another piece of hardware.
