ATHENS, Georgia, March 16. IF the first day of preliminaries is any indication, Georgia, Arizona and Auburn will be the teams to beat at the 2006 Women\u2019s Swimming and Diving Championships at the Gabrielsen Natatorium on the campus of the University of Georgia.<\/p>\n
Through the first six events, Arizona qualified eight finalists while Auburn qualified seven swimmers or relay teams, and defending national champions Georgia had six qualifiers for today\u2019s 7 p.m. finals. The \u201cbig three\u201d were followed by Cal-Berkeley\u2019s four qualifiers and Stanford\u2019s three.<\/p>\n
In Thursday\u2019s first event \u2013 the 200-yard freestyle relay \u2013 Georgia\u2019s team of Kara Lynn Joyce, Tricia Harm, Anna Miller and Jessica Cole finished first with a preliminary time of 1:28.47, which bettered the Gabrielsen Natatorium record of 1:28.94 set by Georgia in 1999 and paved the way for the Bulldogs to have a shot at winning their fifth consecutive 200-yard freestyle crown. <\/p>\n
Georgia was followed by Arizona (which also topped the pool record with a time of 1:28.87), Auburn (1:29.91), Texas (1:30.41), SMU (1:30.36), Wisconsin (1:30.79), Michigan (1:30.84) and Texas A&M (1:30.94).<\/p>\n
In the 500-yard freestyle, Auburn\u2019s Adrienne Bender finished on top at 4:40.39, followed by Cal-Berkley\u2019s Erin Reilly (4:41.51) and Ashley Chandler (4:41.52), SMU\u2019s Flavia Rigamonti (4:41.65), Georgia\u2019s Laura Conway (4:42.27), Auburn\u2019s Hayley Peirsol (4:42.89) and Chelsea Haser (4:43.47), and Florida\u2019s Caroline Burckle (4:43.69).<\/p>\n
Arizona\u2019s Whitney Myers turned in the top prelim time in the 200-yard individual medley at 1:57.19. She was followed by Georgia\u2019s Harm (1:57.58), Auburn\u2019s Emily Kukors (1:58.04), Georgia\u2019s Mary Descenza (1:58.46), Stanford\u2019s Kristen Caverly (1:58.95), Tennessee\u2019s Megan Tomes (1:59.13), Winconsin\u2019s Yi Ting Siow (1:59.23) and Auburn\u2019s Julie Stupp (1:59.43).<\/p>\n
Georgia\u2019s Joyce began the defense of her 50-yard freestyle title by finishing first in Thursday\u2019s preliminaries with a time of 21.73. She was followed by Kentucky\u2019s Jenny Bradford (22.18), Arizona\u2019s Lacey Nymeyer (22.20) and Courtney Cashion (22.31), Brooke Bishop of Stanford (22.32), Jenna Gresdal of Arizona (22.33), Texas A&M\u2019s Aljand Triin (22.40) and Emily Silver of Cal-Berkeley (22.44).<\/p>\n
In the 400-yard medley relay, Southern Cal\u2019s foursome of Hayley McGregory, Rebecca Soni, Kristen Lahey and Rhiannon Jeffery finished first in a time of 3:35.44, followed by defending champion Georgia (3:35.66), Arizona (3:35.71), Cal-Berkeley (3:36.43), Auburn (3:37.35), Stanford (3:37.48), Texas (3:38.44) and Tennessee (3:38.87).<\/p>\n
In the 1-meter diving prelims, which lasted well into Thursday afternoon, Southern Cal\u2019s Blythe Hartley led the way with a score of 325.35, followed by top eight finishers Carrie McCambridge of Purdue (305.55), Allison Brennan of South Carolina (302.90), defending national champion Qiong Jie Huang of Hawaii (300.85), Kentucky\u2019s Taryn Ignacio (299.75), Alabama\u2019s Crystal Rasmussen (292.45) and Christina Loukas of Indiana (290.05).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ATHENS, Georgia, March 16. IF the first day of preliminaries is any indication, Georgia, Arizona and Auburn will be the teams to beat at the 2006 Women\u2019s Swimming and Diving<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11030","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-college","category-zzzzzzzzz"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\r\n