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LIVE VIDEO (FINALS)
HOUSTON, Texas – The Northern Arizona swimming & diving team claimed two more gold medals, bringing their total to four in eight events through two days, and extended their lead to 143 points midway through the WAC Championships. With 380 points, the Lumberjacks have a sizeable advantage over Idaho (237) and Grand Canyon (219) following Thursday's action.
"We're swimming well and the divers did great again with three in the top eight and going one-two," said head coach
Andy Johns. "We thought the freestyles would be good and diving would be good and it's been that way. Now we turn to see some strokes tomorrow with the backstroke, breaststroke and butterfly. We couldn't have scripted it any better, but we still have over half the meet left."
NAU had a whopping 12 athletes in the championship finals of the four individual events and a total of 16 'Jacks scored points. Last year in the exact events, NAU had a total of 12 athletes score with only five in the 'A' finals of the 500 freestyle, 200 individual medley, 50 freestyle and 3-meter diving.
Redshirt senior
Monique King put on a show in rolling her way to her first career individual WAC gold medal in the 500 free. A member of NAU's 800 freestyle relay winning team on Wednesday, King separated herself from the eight-swimmer championship heat and posted an NCAA 'B' cut time of 4:47.67 to become the third different Lumberjack to win the event in the last three years.
King bested her previous career-best time set in November by almost three seconds, and was nearly seven full seconds faster than her preliminary leading time. She was one of four Lumberjacks in the top eight and was joined on the medal stand by freshman
Sam Milewski, who finished in third with a season-best time of 4:52.51.
Senior
Kimmy Richter, last season's 500 free champion, placed fourth with a time of 4:53.89 and senior
Claire Hammond rounded out the 'A' final in eighth with a time of 5:00.23. Richter's finals time was almost four seconds faster than her seed time and Hammond lowered her season-best by more than three seconds.
On the 3-meter springboard, junior
Tatiana Kurach claimed her second gold in as many days – and successfully defended her 3-meter title – with a career-best score of 322.65. Kurach maintained her lead after the prelims in the finals, in large part by crushing a pair of dives and earning two scores of 63.00.
Kurach, freshman
Jenny Cheetham and junior
Christina Torrente continued their exploits from the first day as the all placed in the top four on Thursday. Cheetham, who also posted her own career-best score of 301.75, finished runner-up to Kurach and collected her second medal of her debut championships. Meanwhile, Torrente was fourth with a score of 297.15.
After placing 13th in the prelims, junior
Raquel Gonzales improved three spots to 10th in the consolation finals by upping her score by nearly 40 points to 279.80. Junior
Olivia Payne also improved her score by almost 20 points in the 'B' final to 262.55 and finished 12th overall. All five divers have scored points in both of the diving events thus far.
"We were really solid; the three in the top eight really did a phenomenal job," said diving coach
Nikki Huffman. "The points are so close between them. Raquel and Olivia were solid in consoles. Katie (Conn), and to be honest, she had one bad dive. She would've been in (to consoles) and she did a good job."
The distance freestyle crew was not to be outdone, as NAU's sprinters matched them by also occupying four of the top eight. Freshman
Elisa Rodriguez was the lead Lumberjack in both the prelims and the finals, finishing fourth in the finals. After etching her name in NAU's all-time performance list in the morning – tying senior
Alina Staffeldt for third all-time at 23.11 – Rodriguez posted a team-best time of 23.34 in the evening.
Staffeldt was one spot behind in fifth, clocking a season-best time of 23.40 in the finals. Junior
Andrea Schmidt set a lifetime-best of 23.52 to pick up seventh – her best 50 freestyle career finish – and senior
Roni Houck placed eighth with a time of 23.54.
Junior
Sarah Takach also earned her best conference finish in the 200 IM, finishing eighth with a time of 2:04.53. Her appearance in the 200 IM 'A' final was the first by a Lumberjack since 2016. Also scoring in the event were freshman
Niamh McDonagh in 11th (2:05.76) and sophomore
Kate Bier in 13th (2:06.81). Bier had entered with a seed time of 2:15.80 and over the course of the day, lowered her time by almost nine seconds.
"To put four in the top eight of the 500 – the first individual event of the meet – was a great start," Johns said. "The IMs were good.
Kate Bier was a nice surprise to squeak in at 16 and finish 13th was big for her and the team. The morning session was really good to especially put another four in the 50 and be in the position we were in at night."
After competing in the night's fastest 50 free heat, Staffeldt, Rodriguez, Schmidt and Houck sprinted to a silver medal in the 200 freestyle relay. The Lumberjacks led at the final turn, but were ultimately edged out by Grand Canyon one-tenth of a second for first-place honors. Still, the 'Jacks were able to turn in a season-best time of 1:32.53.
Day three preliminaries for the 400 IM, 100 butterfly, 200 freestyle, 100 breaststroke and 100 backstroke will begin at 9:30 a.m. MST on Friday. The finals for all events including the 400 medley relay will start at 5 p.m. MST.
The divers will have the day off and return for the platform competition on Saturday.
Follow
@NAUSwimDive on Twitter for live updates throughout the day. Video streaming links are available at the top of the page.
