Don't look away. The Stanford Cardinal, after a second-day stumble, have stormed into contention for a potential ninth NCAA title.
All without Katie Ledecky and Simone Manuel.
"We are excited to be in this situation,"
"We are excited to be in this situation," Georgia head coach Jack Bauerle said. "There are a lot of good teams here but we aren't going to leave anything on the table tomorrow. Our women are going to swim with a lot of intensity. We are in the fray and we couldn't be happier about it."
Anytime you can be in the hunt for a national championship, you can hold your head up high.
ldquo;Anytime you can be in the hunt for a national championship, you can hold your head up high and walk in here tomorrow and just take one event at a time, one swim at a time and do our best,” Cal's Teri McKeever countered. “We’ll see where that takes us. People are going to have to dig deep the last morning. It should be a lot of fun.”
Freshman Ella Eastin and the 200-yard medley relay captured national titles for the Cardinal on Friday and launched the Stanford women's swimming and diving team into third place at the 2016 NCAA Championships.
In the first event of the evening, Eastin earned her second national title in as many nights. The Irvine, Calif., native led from the start and earned a sweep of the individual medley events with a career-best 3:58.40 in the 400 IM. Eastin is the fifth Cardinal to win the event for a combined nine national titles. That is the sixth-fastest 400 IM of all-time.
Louisville Senior Kelsi Worrell defended her 100-fly title and set an American record as the University of Louisville women's swimming and diving team moved into sixth place Firday night after three days of racing at the NCAA Women's National Championships at the McAuley Aquatic Center on the campus of Georgia Tech.The Cards also scored a silver and a bronze in a record breaking finals session.
"What an incredible session," said UofL head coach Arthur Albiero. "Definitely one of the best sessions I have experienced as a coach. Three individual A-finals along with a third place in the 200-medley relay with two freshman on the squad made for a special night.
After coming within .07 of her own American record in prelims, Louisville senior Kelsi Worrell powered past that mark in the finals, going 49.43 to push closer to the 49-second barrier being the first-ever woman to go under 50-second, a milestome she hit for the first time in history at last year's NCAAs. She split 23.09 in the first 50 yards, almost half a second faster than she took out her record-setting race last year and then got into the wall in 49.43, an ACC and school record.
"Kelsi breaking her own American record by almost four-tenths of a second was definitely special. She now has eight of the all-time top ten performances in that event in the NCAA. She delivered a dominant performance over a very talented field."
Georgia's Brittany MacLean won her first individual title of the meet, claiming the 200 freestyle in 1:42.42. The time was also a pool record, eclipsing teammate Hali Flickinger's record of 1:42.80 set during Wednesday's 800 freestyle relay. Flickinger followed closely behind, finishing fourth in 1:43.32. Meaghan Raab won the consolation final in 1:44.62.
"I just wanted to win this for my team," MacLean said. "They are all I care about right now. If you would have told me a year ago that I would have won the 200 freestyle at NCAAs, I probably would have laughed."
Rachel Bootsma battled back after being sick throughout the week. The Cal Senior won her third NCAA title in the 100 back and kept the Bears in contention for the team title. It was the third title for Bootsma who also won the 100 back in 2013 and 2015.
“I was really nervous,” Bootsma said. “I haven’t been feeling that great. Just to get my hands to the wall was relief. I don’t think it’s hit me yet, but I’m sure it will. I’m just really honored to win again.”
“It’s pretty special to win three of the four years in your college career in any event, and the backstrokes in particular have been incredibly fast,” Cal coach Teri McKeever said. “Rachel has done a great job her whole career. Like most people, lots of things happen during your college career, and she’s just found a way to keep bouncing back and be her best. I’m really happy for her.”
Bootsma also scored points for the Bears by placing seventh in the 100 butterfly, one of three Cal swimmers to advance to the championship final in the event. Osman placed third with a time of 50.76 while Noemie Thomas finished sixth.
Indiana's Lilly King cemented herself as the greatest 100 breaststroke swimmer in history, becoming the first woman to break the 57-second barrier with her NCAA Championship winning time of 56.85. King broke her own American, NCAA, NCAA Meet, U.S. Open, Indiana school, Big Ten and Georgia Tech Pool record of 57.15 she set in the Friday morning prelims.
The freshman is the first IU breaststroker – male or female – to win a NCAA National Championship since Don McKenzie won the 100 breast for the Hoosier men in 1969.
Stanford bookended the night with national championships as the 200-yard medley relay capped the session with another victory. Ally Howe, Sarah Haase, Janet Hu and Lia Neal earned the sweep in the medley relays with a winning time of 1:34.81. Stanford has now won the event 13 times, and two of the last three years. One night earlier, the foursome won the 400 medley relay. They own the American record in both events.
| 1 Georgia 285 2 California 267.5 3 Stanford 265 4 Texas A&M 201.5 5 Virginia 196 6 Louisville 176 7 Southern Cal 156.5 8 Indiana 153 9 Missouri 106 9 Arizona 106 11 NC State 95 12 Tennessee 79 13 Michigan 74 14 Ohio St 69 15 UCLA 66 |
16 Texas 53 17 Nevada 49 18 North Carolina 47 19 Florida 35.5 20 Wisconsin 33 20 Minnesota 33 20 Miami (OH) 33 23 Purdue 32 24 Kentucky 20 24 Alabama 20 26 South Carolina 17 27 Penn St 13 28 Kansas 11 29 Denver 10 29 Auburn 10 |
31 Iowa 9 32 Nebraska 7 33 Miami (Fl) 6 33 Smu 6 33 Virginia Tech 6 36 Hawaii 4 36 Air Force 4 36 Pittsburgh 4 39 Eastern Mich 3 39 Louisiana State 3 41 UMBC 2 42 Florida Gulf 1 42 Rutgers 1 |
