| Jessica Barnes will make her third career NCAA Championships appearance. |
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa.; March 2, 2007 ?C Ten different Penn State women??s swimmers qualified for the NCAA Championships that will be held next weekend in Minneapolis, Minn. The NCAA qualifiers were announced by the NCAA on Thursday night.
The 10 NCAA qualifiers are just one fewer than the 11 that qualified last year. One Nittany Lions will be making her third appearance at the NCAA meet while six, three of which are sophomores, will be making their second appearances. Three freshmen will also join the contingent. Penn State??s 10 qualifiers are tied for the 10th most out of the 56 total teams that will send at least one swimmers to the championships. The Nittany Lions also tied for the most swimmers of any Big Ten school along with Minnesota, which also had ten swimmers qualify.
Making her third career appearances at NCAAs will be senior Nikki Collins. Junior Molly Crispell, seniors Jessica Barnes and Claire Hawley, as well as sophomores Karie Haglund, Kelly Nelson and Kaitlin O??Brien will be making their second appearances at the national meet. Freshmen Kailey Morris, Daphne Skelos and Lyndsey Smith will all qualified for the NCAA championships as well.
Four of the 10 swimmers qualified with an NCAA ??A?? automatic qualifying time. Both Kelly Nelson and Karie Haglund swam ??A?? times in the 200 butterfly, Nikki Collins posted an ??A?? time in the 1650 free and Kaitlin O??Brien made an ??A?? in the 400 IM. The other six swimmers also qualified with ??B?? provisional times. Both Collins and O??Brien were All-Americans last year. The top eight finishers in each event are named All-Americans while finishers nine through 16 are named honorable mention All-Americans.
| Nikki Collins, an All-American last year in the 1650 free, will also make her third career appearance at NCAAs. |
This year will mark the fourth straight year that Penn State has had at least 10 swimmers qualify for the NCAA championships and the fifth year in the last six. The 10 qualifiers also now gives the Nittany Lion women 83 NCAA qualifiers under head coach Bill Dorenkott since his first year as head coach in 1998-99.
Penn State NCAA Qualifiers (career appearances at NCAAs)
Jessica Barnes (2)
Nikki Collins (3)
Molly Crispell (2)
Karie Haglund (2)
Claire Hawley (2)
Kailey Morris (1)
Kelly Nelson (2)
Kaitlin O??Brien (2)
Daphne Skelos (1)
Lyndsey Smith (1)
Most NCAA Qualifiers
Auburn ?C 20
Arizona ?C 19
Stanford ?C 16
California ?C 15
Florida ?C 14
Southern California ?C 12
Texas A&M ?C 12
Georgia ?C 11
SMU ?C 11
Penn State ?C 10
Texas ?C 10
Minnesota - 10