Lady Aggies Victors

COLLEGE STATION, Texas, November 19. THE Texas A&M women's swimming & diving team ended the Art Adamson Invitational with 1,282.5 points for first place.

The fifth-ranked Aggies steadily outdistanced No. 10 Michigan, 1,048, over the three-day meet while No. 7 Southern Methodist was third with 685 points. LSU (409), Illinois (295.5), Pacific (169) and the Houston divers (100) rounded out the team standings.

Reigning Big 12 Swimmer of the Week Julia Wilkinson had her hand in all three Texas A&M school records that fell on Sunday. Wilkinson began the evening session by chopping almost a full second off the A&M mark in the 200-yard backstroke with a winning time of 1:55.48. At the conclusion of the meet, she led off the 400-yard freestyle relay in a school record time of 49.23, breaking her own mark of 49.35 set leading off that same relay at the NCAA Championships eight months ago. The Aggie 400 free relay of Wilkinson, Rebecca Sturdy (Anacortes, Wash.), Christine Marshall (Newport News, Va.), and Triin Aljand (Tallinn, Estonia) went on to set a new school record of 3:17.23. All three school records easily eclipsed the NCAA automatic qualifying standard.

Sophomore Kristen Heiss (Casper, Wyo.) earned her second individual NCAA automatic qualifying mark of the weekend after finishing third in the 200 back behind Wilkinson and SMU's Anja Carmen (1:57.57) in a time of 1:57.64.

Five-time All-American Triin Aljand recorded her third NCAA automatic qualifying time of the week in a second-place finish in the 100-yard freestyle. Aljand set a lifetime-best of 49.49 in finishing second to SMU sophomore Petra Klosova (48.84).

Senior Meghan Nebera (Brentwood, Tenn.) turned in the swim of her career in a second-place finish in the 200-yard butterfly. Nebera clocked a time of 1:59.44 to smash her old lifetime-best of 2:00.97. The time is a very low NCAA consideration time that, almost without exception, has been picked up for the NCAA Championships each year.

Freshman Alia Atkinson (Pembroke Pines, Fla.) grabbed a second-place finish in the 200-yard breaststroke in an NCAA consideration time of 2:16.49. Atkinson hasn't finished worse than second in the race so far this season.

Other Aggies recording NCAA consideration times on Sunday were Jenni Stratton, 1,650 free, 16:37.10; Emily Neal, 200 back, 1:59.00; Sturdy, 200 back, 1:59.29; Kara Morelli, 200 back, 2:01.17; Marshall, 100 free, 49.76; Marshall, 200 fly, 1:59.50; and the A&M ‘B' 400 free relay team (Codie Hansen, Melissa Hain, Marissa Jasek, Heiss), 3:24.22.

The Aggies will try to finish off the fall season undefeated in a Dec. 2 meeting with Rice at 2 p.m. at the Student Rec Center Natatorium.

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