Karie Haglund swam her third NCAA 'B' cut of the year on Saturday, adding the 100 fly to her previous 'B' times in the 400 IM and 200 fly.
TORONTO, Ont.; November 25, 2006 ?C The Penn State women??s swimming team picked up four more NCAA ??B?? provisional qualifying times on day two of the Bell Grand Prix and after two days and after two-thirds of the meet, the women sit in third place out of 64 teams that have scored points in the meet.
Karie Haglund (Marietta, Ga.) and Kelly Nelson (West Chester, Pa.) each picked up their third ??B?? cuts of the year, this time in the 100 butterfly, as both swam ??B?? times in the 400 IM last night and also previously put up ??B?? times in the 200 butterfly earlier this year. Kaitlin O??Brien (Caldwell, N.J.) added another NCAA ??B?? time as well, this time in the 200 IM, while the 800 freestyle relay team of Molly Crispell (Boalsburg, Pa.), Jessica Barnes (Glenmoore, Pa.), Nelson and Michelle Myers (Boalsburg, Pa.) also put up Penn State??s first ??B?? cut in that event this year.
For the men??s team, Kyle Miranda (Louisville, Colo.) led the way with a third place finish in the 200 breaststroke while Pat Schirk (Pottstown, Pa.) and Dan Kaiserian (Radnor, Pa.) each had sixth place finishes in their respective events to headline the men??s finishers on the second day of the meet.
The three-day meet, which is being hosted by the Etobicoke Swimming Club Team out of Toronto, features mainly club teams from around Canada as well as several members of the Canadian National Team and a few world record holders. It is being held in a short-course meter pool as opposed to the usual short-course yard pool that most NCAA events are contested in.
In the 100 butterfly, Haglund and Nelson each swam NCAA ??B?? provisional qualifying times. Haglund finished second with a time of 1:00.99, exactly one second short of the ??A?? qualifying time. Nelson came in sixth at 1:01.57.
O??Brien, who last night put up the first NCAA ??A?? time of the year for the Nittany Lions in the 400 IM, earned her first ??B?? cut of the year in the 200 IM as she swam to a sixth place finish in 2:17.10. She also had the fourth fastest time in the morning preliminaries.
Just like the 1500 freestyle yesterday, a non-NCAA contested event, Penn State??s women once again excelled in the one distance event of the day, the 400 freestyle, although it, too, is not a distance that is contested by the NCAA. The Nittany Lions had five of the top 16 finishers in the 400 after having four of the top 13 in the 1500 yesterday. Claire Hawley (Barnstable, Mass.) led the way with a sixth place finish in 4:14.46 while Nikki Collins (Carmel, Ind.) was ninth in 4:15.61. Just behind Collins in 10th place was Kailey Morris (Lewisburg, Pa.), who finished in 4:16.31. Jaime Keily (Houston, Tex.) placed 12th and Barnes came in 16th to round out the Nittany Lions finishers in the 400 free.
Claire Hawley finished sixth in the 400 freestyle one night after placing fourth in the 1500 free. |
Penn State also had two women??s swimmers pick up points in one other non-NCAA event, the 50 backstroke. Myers finished 10th in :29.47 while Kaitlyn Ferguson (Mamaroneck, N.J.) was 12th in :29.63. Myers just missed a ??B?? cut in the 50 free, as she finished fifth in :26.23, just .07 of a second off a ??B?? cut. The 200 breaststroke saw two Nittany Lions pick up points as O??Brien placed 10th and Clare Clemens (Staten Island, N.Y.) finished 15th.
In the 800 free relay, the aforementioned Penn State team of Crispell, Barnes, Nelson and Myers finished sixth in the NCAA ??B?? time of 8:13.85. Penn State??s ??B?? team in the 800 relay also picked up points as Morris, Daphne Skelos (Rockville Centre, N.Y.), Collins and O??Brien finished ninth in 8:19.69.
Kyle Miranda finished third in the 200 breaststroke on day two of the Bell Grand Prix. |
On the men??s side, Miranda??s third place finish in the 200 breast was the best finish for the men??s team on the day as he finished in 2:15.05, which was just .23 of a second off an NCAA ??B?? cut. Kaiserian also got close to making a ??B?? cut in the 50 free, as he was less than a second off as he finished sixth in :23.14. Also picking up points in the 50 free were Basil Kaaki (Ras Tanura, Saudi Arabia) in 13th place and Sean Swanepoel (Lincoln Mead, So. Afr.) in 15th place. Schirk also picked up a sixth place finish in the 50 backstroke, a non-NCAA event.
In the other non-NCAA men??s event of the day, Penn State had four of the top 16 finishers in the 400 freestyle. Ryan DeWeese (Midlothian, Va.) finished eighth in 3:57.25 while Chris Sullivan (Naples, Fla.) (12th), Dito Calderon (Bowie, Md.) (13th) and David Kraft (Vienna, Va.) (16th) also picked up points.
Tim Williams (North Bend, Ohio) was just under a second off an NCAA ??B?? cut in the 100 fly as he finished seventh in :55.11. In the 200 IM, Sean Biedermann placed seventh in 2:05.90.
Action will get underway on Sunday morning with preliminary heats in the final seven events each for the men and women. Tomorrow night??s 14 final events will begin at 6:30 p.m. Live scoring is available at the Etobicoke Swimming Club Team??s website www.eswim.ca.