March 16, 2012
AUBURN, Ala. - The Penn State women's swimming team reset the school record twice in the 200 medley relay on Friday and had a swimmer qualify for the 100 breaststroke finals as well. Penn State sits in 21st place overall with 22 points.
In the 200 medley relay, junior Paige Whitmire, senior Samantha Palser, junior Merritt Krawczyk and sophomore Mackenzie Powers finished 15th in the preliminaries and qualified for the finals with a team-record time of 1:38.58. That timed the group's season-best time by .01 seconds, which was set at the Big Ten Championships last month. Nevertheless, the team reset the school record again in the finals, clocking in at 1:38.48 for a tie of 13th place finish.
In the 100 breaststroke, Krawczyk continued her strong day, as she qualified for the finals with a preliminaries time of 1:00.23. She would add just .01 to her time from the preliminaries in the finals (1:00.24) to earn a 15th place finish in the event.
Over in the 400 IM preliminaries, sophomore Chelsea Weedman finished with a time of 4:11.81, which beat her previous best time by over three seconds. Powers swam the 100 butterfly in 52.84 seconds, while senior Erin Thomas swam the 200 freestyle in 1:47.66. Whitemire swam the backstroke in 53.86 seconds while Powers swam it in 56.23 seconds.
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