Women's Swimming: Five Qualify for NCAAs
March 04, 2007 09:46 PM | General
March 4, 2007
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| Kayla Andrews |
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Five West Virginia University women’s swimmers encompassing an impressive 17 different events will take part in this year’s NCAA Swimming and Diving Championships to take place March 8-10, at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, Minn.
Posting qualifying times for the Mountaineers were freshmen Kayla Andrews, Morgan Callaway, Stephanie Shupe, Kitti Veisz and junior Maritza Paredes.
“This team is young and the sky is the limit,” said West Virginia University coach Sergio Lopez. “I am very proud of what this team has accomplished.”
Andrews will be competing in the 50 and 100 freestyles, and the 100 backstroke. Her top event is the 100 free where she is ranked ninth in the country with a time of 49.02.
Calloway will also compete in three events: 100 and 200 back and the 500 free. Calloway’s top event is the 100 back with a time of 55.25.
Veisz will compete in the 100 and 200 breast as well as the 200 IM. Veisz’s top time of 2:14.27 ranks her 18th in the nation.
Paredes has qualified in both the 100 and 200 freestyles, while Stephanie Shupe posted a qualifying time of 54.74 in the 100 fly.
The Mountaineers will also be competing in all five relays. The 400 medley relay is ranked 14th with a time of 3:40.36 and the 200 medley relay is ranked 17th with a time of 1:40.58.
This year marks the first time West Virginia University will be represented at the women’s swimming championships in 11 years when Valerie Patterson qualified in 1996. It is also the most female swimmers qualified since 1985 when the Mountaineers sent four competitors.
“Our women have done an amazing job establishing themselves as one of the top teams in the Big East and getting nationally ranked,” said Lopez.
There are only four other teams in this year’s championships sending more freshmen than West Virginia (Arizona, Cal, Florida and Stanford) and only two other schools (Auburn and North Carolina) are sending as many as the Mountaineers.
West Virginia is one of five Big East schools sending swimmers to this year’s championship; the Mountaineers are second to Notre Dame (nine) for the most NCAA qualifiers from the Big East.
“We will go to NCAAs to get experience and to make sure that we learn as much as we can so next year we can take an even bigger team and we can really challenge some of the best teams in the country,” Lopez said.
West Virginia is coming off a school best third-place finish at this year’s Big East championships. The Mountaineers received votes in this year’s CSCAA dual meet rankings for the first time in school history, and had three Big East champions and established three conference records.
In all, 36 school records were broken this season.
