NCAA DIVISION I WOMEN’S CHAMPS: Records are Dropping Like Flies in Athens

By Chris J. Starrs

ATHENS, Georgia, March 16. RECORDS were falling early and often Thursday during the first night of competition at the 2006 NCAA Division I Women’s Swimming and Diving Championships at the Gabrielsen Natatorium on the University of Georgia campus.

In the evening’s first event, Arizona’s 200-yard freestyle relay team – Courtney Cashion, Jenna Gresdal, Anna Turner and Lacey Nymeyer – overcame a torrid start by Georgia’s Kara Lynn Joyce to win the event, setting a new NCAA and American record and wrestling the title away from the Bulldogs, who have had a stranglehold on the relay for the last four years.

Arizona’s time of 1:27.98 bettered the mark set by Georgia (1:28.10) last year. The Wildcats also picked up 40 points to take an early lead in the meet.

After Georgia’s Laura Conway set a new pool record in the 500-yard freestyle with a time of 4:40.01 (set by Lindsey Benko of Southern Cal in 1999), her Bulldog teammate Joyce then shattered the national record in the 50-yard freestyle in a time of 21.63, bettering the previous standard of 21.69, set by Georgia’s Maritza Correia in 2002.

And Arizona’s Whitney Myers set a new Gabrielsen Natatorium record in the 200-yard individual medley, posting a time of 1:54.88, topping the previous mark of 1:55.64, set by Martina Moracova of SMU in 1999.

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