2014 NAIA National Championships – Women’s Meet
- Dates: Wednesday, March 5 – Saturday, March 8, 2014; prelims 10:00 am, finals 6:00 pm
- Location: Oklahoma City Community College, Oklahoma City, OK (Central Time Zone)
- Defending Champions: Oklahoma Baptist University (results)
- Live Results: Available
- Live Video: Available
- Championship Central
The first morning is in the books at Oklahoma City Community College, host to the 2014 NAIA National Championships.
The 2013 National Champions Oklahoma Baptist women did pretty much exactly what we expected this morning, as did 2013 runner-up SCAD Savannah, with 12 and 10 finals swims, respectively. The big surprise of the morning was the huge improvement shown by Olivet Nazarene, who did better than expected in every single individual event and placed 7 swimmers in tonight’s finals.
Ups/Downs
| Team |
A Final |
B Final |
| Biola |
1 |
1 |
| Brenau |
1 |
2 |
| College of Idaho |
1 |
0 |
| Concordia |
2 |
5 |
| Cumberlands |
1 |
3 |
| Lindsey Wilson |
0 |
1 |
| Oklahoma Baptist |
8 |
4 |
| Olivet Nazarene |
4 |
3 |
| SCAD Savannah |
6 |
4 |
| Union College |
0 |
1 |
200 medley relay: Oklahoma Baptist put up the fastest swim in prelims with 1:45.40. The next seven qualifiers were: Olivet Nazarene, Brenau, Union College, Biola, SCAD Savannah, Concordia, and Cumberlands.
500 free: Caroline Lepesant of SCAD had the morning’s fastest swim, going 4:59.57 to claim lane 4 in tonight’s final. Brenau’s Courtney Hayward qualified second in 5:00.02 and Lepesant’s teammate Emma McKinley was third. Sam Elam of ONU dropped 10 seconds and her teammate Hayley Ronci dropped 11 to make the championship final. 2013 winner Nicole Wilson of OBU, her teammate Yulia Lapshova, and Concordia’s Mikala Nelson round out the top eight.
200 IM: Biola’s Christine Tixier turned in the morning’s fastest time (2:07.28), with Hannah Legg of SCAD qualifying second. Tiffany Ray and Sydney Harris, both of ONU dropped 3 and 4 seconds, respectively, to make the championship final. OBU’s Ines Remersaro was fifth and last year’s national champion Charlotte Parent of Cumberlands qualified sixth. Rounding out the top eight were McKayla Stevens of The College of Idaho, who dropped 3.5, and Norra Stroh of SCAD, who improved her seed time by 4.
This should be an exciting final. Tixier and Legg had some very close races in last year’s meet. We could see a new NAIA record tonight.
50 free: As expected OBU filled the championship final with its sprinters: 2013 national champion Laura Galarza was the top qualifier with 23.03; her teammates Emma Forbes-Milne, Andrea Antonissen, Lisa MacManus and Lexie Keller qualified 3-6. Brooke Roy of Concordia will be in lane 5 tonight as the second qualifier, while SCAD’s Becky Dionne and Heather Partlow will be in the outside lanes. Partlow won a swim-off for the right to contest the championship final.
I presume Caroline is your daughter. 🙂
Good luck to her.
Sorry for being ignorant about that but I have discovered with NAIA a new American sports organization after NCAA and YMCA.
What’s the difference between NCAA and NAIA?
bobo – they’re two differently governed organizations. The NAIA is usually smaller liberal arts schools or schools that focus on one specific major. The athletics is usually, though not always, less of a focus as compared to NCAA schools, however they do get 8 scholarships, which is more than NCAA Division III schools get.