March 18, 2009
LIVE RESULTS: http://www.aggieathletics.com/ncaa2009/swimming/women/stats.html
VIDEO: http://www.swimmingworldmagazine.com/specialevents/womensncaa2009/
Eight members of the Missouri women's swimming and diving team head down to College Station, Texas, the home of the Texas A&M Aggies, for the 2009 Women's NCAA Swimming and Diving Championships, held from March 19-21. With seven qualifiers and one reserve, the 2009 NCAA's mark the most Tigers to compete at Nationals in the history of the program.
The NCAA Championships will put a cap on what has been an incredible year for the Tiger program. The women's team saw endless amounts of school records and top-10 times being set over the course of the season, along with the third-ever Big 12 individual swimming champion and the most points ever scored by the women's program at the Big 12 Championships, held last month in Columbia, Mo.
The Tigers will send seniors Jill Granger, Lori Halvorson and Kendra Melnychuk, junior Colleen Gordon, sophomores Lauren Lavigna and Francie Szostak and freshman Kayla Durnil. Freshman Lisa Nathanson will also travel with the team as a reserve to the relay team.
Melnychuk qualified for NCAA's last weekend at the NCAA Zone “D” Diving Championships, also held in Columbia. The senior All-American makes her third-straight trip to the NCAA's after finishing in third at Zones on the 1-meter springboard. Since Melnychuk dove in all three events at Zones, she earns the right to compete in all three diving events at Nationals. Last year, Melnychuk scored two All-America honors at NCAA's. The Canadian finished in 11th-place on the 3-meter with a score of 313.90, and followed that by posting 10th-place finish on the platform, totaling 273.35 in the finals.
The only other Tiger with NCAA Championships experience is fellow senior Jill Granger. Granger joined Melnychuk at the 2007 NCAA Championships, where she swam in the 500 free, 400 IM and 1650 free. This time around, the Midland, Texas, native will compete again in the 500 free and 400 IM. At this year's Big 12's, Granger both school records in both events, racing to 4:43.98 in the 500 free and 4:13.56 in the 400 IM. She finished fifth and fourth in both of those events, respectively.
For the rest of the Mizzou women, the 2009 NCAA Championships will be unchartered waters as this will mark the first-ever NCAA's for Halvorson, Gordon, Lavigna, Szostak and Durnil.
Halvorson capped off her senior season by earning NCAA bids in both the 100 and 200 free. The captain holds school records in both events, setting both at this year's Big 12 Championships. The Oklahoman also sits at fifth all-time in the 500 free, third in the 200 back, second in the 200 IM, eighth in the 400 IM, and is a member of 23 of the school's top-50 relay teams spread across the five relay events.
Lavigna and Durnil are tied amongst Tigers for most events, as both swimmers earned three bids. Lavigna, the team's top backstroker, will compete in both the 100 and 200 backstroke events, along with the 500 free. Lavigna finished sixth in the 100 and fifth in the 200 at this year's Big 12's, while setting school records in both. She also was named as the Big 12 Swimmer of the Week for the week of Feb. 18, 2009.
Durnil has exploded onto the scene during her freshman season, putting herself in the record books in four separate individual events this year. Amongst those are school records in the 100 and 200 breast and 200 IM, along with the second-best time in the 400 IM. At the 2009 Big 12 Championships, Durnil became just the third-ever Big 12 swimming Champion in the history of Missouri's program after taking the top spot in the 200 breast. The Columbia, Mo., native will swim in both breaststrokes, along with the 400 IM at NCAA's.
Gordon and Szostak will both compete in the 500 free, alongside Granger and Lavigna. Gordon is also set to race in the mile, while Szostak will swim in the 200 free. Gordon currently has the second-fastest times in both events, and also sits in second in the 1000 free, fifth in the 100 fly and fourth in both IM events. At this year's conference championship meet, Gordon placed sixth in the 500 free and fifth in the mile.
Szostak sits in the top-three all-time in the 100, 200 and 500 freestyle events. She finished in seventh-place in the 500 free at Big 12's and ninth in the 200 free. Her 200 free time at Big 12's was a school-record, before Halvorson broke it the following day leading off the 800 free relay.
Speaking of the 800 free relay, the team of Halvorson, Gordon, Szostak and Granger qualified to compete in the event, marking the first time the Tigers ever qualified a relay team to Nationals. The foursome raced to a time of 7:03.77, which is not only a school-record, but is also the 10th-fastest time in the entire country for the 2008-09 season.
Action gets underway Thursday morning with the preliminaries. Swimming preliminary rounds starts at 11 a.m. CT, while diving prelims will begin at 1:30 p.m. CT each day. Final sessions start at 7 p.m. CT each night. Live results will be hosted at aggieathletics.com, while live video can be seen at swimmingworldmagazine.com. Check into mutigers.com throughout the weekend for more updates.