Night Three to Be a California Coronation at Women’s NCAA Championships

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By David Rieder

GREENSBORO − We are less than two hours away from the final session of the 2015 Women’s NCAA Swimming Championships, and the die has been cast; barring some crazy finish that would involve multiple DQs, California will win the national championship. The Golden Bears previously won team titles in 2009, 2011, and 2012.

When Teri McKeever won her first team title in 2009, she had the aid of a superstar, as Dana Vollmer collected wins in the 100 and 200 free on her way to winning NCAA swimmer of the year. This year, another Bear in her final collegiate meet will collect top-swimmer honors; Missy Franklin will cap off her meet in the finals tonight in her best event, one that should be a big event for Cal.

After Friday’s finals, McKeever spoke of the 200 back being a potentially “special” event for her team. Indeed, the Bears will be favored to go 1-2 with Franklin and Elizabeth Pelton, who qualified as the top seed by one one-hundredth. Courtney Bartholomew, who looked extremely relaxed in posting the fourth seed in prelims, could play spoiler, but the Bears also have Melanie Klaren, who snuck into the last spot in the championship heat.

Cal holds an 84-point lead over Georgia heading into the final evening of finals, and even the Bulldogs’ patented strong day three performance could not put them back into contention. Both Cal and Georgia went six up and three down during day three’s prelims. Notably, for the second straight day, Georgia had damaging two ninth-place finishes, with Olivia Smoliga in the 100 free and Megan Kingsley in the 100 fly.

Even in the 1650, typically a Georgia strength, Cal will counter the likes of Brittany MacLean and Amber McDermott with the top seed, in Cierra Runge. Stanford is locked into third − they project to have about 100-point margins both behind Stanford and in front of fourth place − but the battle for two spots in the top five should be intriguing.

Thus far, Virginia has scored 62 points less this meet than they were originally projected to, but they pretty much held serve on day three; their 14.5 point lead over Texas A&M is projected to close to 7.5 on night three, but they should still hang on. Critical to their hopes will be title contenders Leah Smith in the 1650, Bartholomew in the 200 back, and Laura Simon in the 200 breast.

Texas A&M has two swimmers in championship finals this evening, but both have room for improvement as the eighth seeds: Beryl Gastaldello in the 100 free and Ashley McGregor in the 200 breast. Louisville, meanwhile, will need big efforts from Kelsi Worrell and Tanja Kylliainen in the 200 fly if they hope to make a run at the fifth-place position.

USC looks like the favorite to finish in seventh, while Texas has jumped ahead of Florida as the favorite for eighth, with Tennessee, Indiana, and Arizona all lurking.

Special thanks to Price Fishback for his analysis of scoring all weekend.

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