Feb. 29, 2008
University Park, Pa. - Three members of the women's swimming team will swim at ECAC Championships in Pittsburgh this weekend as they look to improve on their NCAA 'B' provisional qualifying times to hopefully get an invite to the NCAA Championships later in March.
Clare Clemens, Karie Haglund and Kaitlyn Ferguson will all compete at this weekend's meet, which will be hosted by Pittsburgh. The Nittany Lion team competed at Pittsburgh's Trees Pool in January for a quad meet.
Although the meet runs from Friday through Sunday, the Nittany lion trio will compete on only Saturday and Sunday. Clemens and Haglund will compete in the 400 IM and Ferguson will swim in the 100 backstroke on Saturday. On Sunday, Ferguson will swim in the 200 back, Clemens the 200 breaststroke and Haglund the 200 butterfly.
Haglund is a two-time NCAA qualifier in her first two years of college. Fellow junior Ferguson will be looking to make her first NCAA appearance while Clemens, a senior who transfered to Penn State last year from Indian River Community College, will be looking for her first NCAA appearance as well.
Clemens is just .66 of a second short of an NCAA 'A' automatic qualifying time in the 200 breast, with her best time being 2:14.85 swam last week at Big Ten Championships. Haglund is closest to an 'A' time in the 200 fly, where her best time of 1:59.37 swam last weekend is just .38 of a second off the 'A' time of 1:58.99. Ferguson is closest to an 'A' time in the 100 back, where her best time is :54.69, just .31 of a second off the 'A' cut.
Live scoring of the ECAC Championships can be found