2015 WOMEN’S NCAA DI CHAMPIONSHIPS
- Thursday, March 19 – Saturday, March 21
- Greensboro Aquatic Center – Greensboro, NC
- Prelims 11AM/Finals 7PM (Eastern Time)
- Defending Champion: Georgia (2x) – results
- NCAA Championship Central
- Live stream: All prelims & Thursday finals (Other sessions will be on ESPN3)
- Live results
Louisville claimed the top seed in the 200 medley relay with two fantastic splits from Kelsi Worrell and Andrea Cottrell, but without another sprinter to anchor the relay, California, Georgia, and Virginia will probably move ahead of the Cardinals.
The more surprising finish from this morning’s relay was Stanford. After breaking the American record in the 400 medley last night, they failed to qualify for the A final with an 11th place time of 1:37.30, which is two seconds slower than their season best. Their top breaststroker, Sarah Haase, was not on the relay. Katie Olsen swam the breaststroke leg for them, splitting 27.37. Haase probably could have been faster had she been on the relay. She is the top seed in the individual event with a 58.19.
As for American/US Open records, it is always possible to see relay records go down at the NCAA Championships. With three teams under the old record in the 400 medley relay, I expect the 200 relay will fall as well.
Individually, Kelsi Worrell broke the American record in the 100 butterfly this morning, becoming the first woman in history under 50 seconds. If you track her races, she tends to be very aggressive during prelims. Last night she was slightly faster during finals in her individual 50 freestyle, but her butterfly relay split in the 400 medley relay was about a half second slower.
Missy Franklin and Simone Manuel will be right next to each other in the 200 freestyle. Both “cruised” to 1:41.9’s this morning to qualify first and second. I believe that it is going to take an American record to win this event tonight, and that both swimmers will push each other to a sub 1:40 time.
Courtney Bartholomew is so close to the American record in the 100 backstroke, but she will need a huge swim to dip under the record. She dropped close to .7 seconds yesterday between prelims and finals leading off the 400 medley relay. She will need to do the same thing again tonight if we want Coughlin’s second record of the night to be broken.
The final event of the day is the 800 freestyle relay. California broke the American record at the Pac 12 Championships a few weeks ago, but there is a big difference between the first race on day 1 of a conference championship meet, and a third 200 freestyle after the second day of NCAA’s. California has enough talent to break the record, but it will be a big challenge for them.
The Michigan men broke the men’s 800 freestyle record at the Big 10 championships last year, but were not able to repeat their swim at the NCAA Championships.
