Florida’s Elizabeth Beisel Powers Way to 400 IM Crown

INDIANAPOLIS, Indiana, March 22. EVEN with Texas A&M's Cammile Adams pushing the pace early, Florida's Elizabeth Beisel demonstrated her 400 IM pedigree with a victorious time of 4:00.49 (55.34, 59.48, 1:09.92, 55.75) at the NCAA Division I Women's Championships.

Beisel's time stands 13th all time in the event's history. The win is also Florida's seventh victory all time in the 400 IM, tying the Gators with Stanford for the most distance medley titles by a single program. Previous Florida winners include Tracy Caulkins (1982, 1983, 1984), Mary Wayte (1985), Julie Gorman (1988) and Allison Wagner (1995) with the last win coming more than a decade ago.

The finale did not have the same speed as last year, which featured a final that included several sub-4:00 times including Katinka Hosszu (3:56.54) and Caitlin Leverenz (3:57.89) with NCAA and American records, respectively. However, Beisel was still all smiles on the podium after the triumph.

Stanford's Maya DiRado kept pace with Beisel through the breaststroke leg, but did not have enough freestyle speed as she wound up taking second overall with a 4:01.02. Leverenz faded to third with a 4:02.98 even with a 1:06.85 breaststroke split.

Adams finished fourth in 4:03.74 after being out in 54.71 in the fly leg, while USC's Stina Gardell took fifth in 4:04.66. Texas A&M's Sarah Henry (4:04.75), Georgia's Melanie Margalis (4:05.36) and UNC's Carolyn Blalock (4:07.58) turned in the rest of the A final finishes.

Georgia jumped back into the lead with 195 points, while Tennessee stood second with 190.5 points. Arizona (159), California (152) and Southern California (143) comprised the rest of the top five.

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