NCAA Division II Championships – Hot Links
- March 11th-14th, 2015
- Indianapolis, Indiana (IUPUI Natatorium)
- Real-Time results
- Video link (expected to be available when meet starts)
- Championship Central
- Day 4 events: 100 free, 200 back, 200 breast, 400 free relay, women’s 3-meter diving, 1650 free (timed finals)
The Queens Royals, even with a big early relay DQ, enter the final day of competition in line to win their first ever NCAA men’s and women’s swimming national championships, but they’ll have to deal with the deep Drury sprint groups if they want to win.
Women – Top Ten Through Day Three
- Queens (NC) 422.5
- Drury 356.5
- Wingate 248
- Nova S’Eastern 180
- UCSD 159
- Wayne State 147
- Delta State 132
- LIU Post 127
- Cal Baptist 117
- Lindenwood 110
Men – Top Ten Through Day Three
- Queens (NC) 316.5
- Drury 302.5
- Lindenwood 270
- Grand Valley 230
- Wayne State 223
- Florida Southern 196.5
- Nova S’Eastern 171
- Bridgeport 169.5
- Tampa 126
- Cal Baptist 125.5
Women’s 100 Free – Prelims
- NCAA D2 Record – Ana Azambuja, 48.94, Wayne State, 2014
Queens’ Patricia Castro, who has been dominant en route to NCAA Division II Records in both the 200 and 500 yard freestyles, wound up as the second seed in this 100 in 49.33. She’s shown as much of an ability as anybody this week to have big drops between prelims and finals, which means the D2 Record is still very much in play this evening.
So, too, is the title. Nova Southeastern’s Byryndis Hansen has also had a very good meet, and she’s seeded 2nd in 49.70, followed by Drury’s Janet Yu (49.76) and Wen Xu (49.82). Xu came into the meet with the top seed.
This preliminary round all-but-sealed the team title for Queens, with Lillian Gordy giving them a 2nd swimmer into the A-Final (49.88). Queens also put a second swimmer Alexandra Marshall (50.71) into the B-Final, and will likely outscore Drury in finals, in what historically has been a strength for the Panthers.
Finishing out the A-final will be Limestone’s Emily Reh (50.05), NMU’s Debbi Lawrence (50.13), and Natalia Garriock (50.48).
Men’s 100 free – Prelims
- NCAA D2 Record – Andrew Seryy, 42.61, Wayne State, 2012
Nova Southeastern’s Thiago Sickert, the 26-year old Brazilian who has been a big story this season, took the top seed in the men’s 100 free prelims with a 43.19. That’s a three-tenths of a second improvement over his seed time as he seeks a second title of the meet after winning the 200 free earlier in the week.
A very good second 50 from Sickert pulled him in front of Drury sophomore Samuel Olson, who wound up 2nd in 43.37; and Lindenwood’s Serghei Golban, who wound up 3rd in 43.81.
Lindenwood did some damage on the team leaders from Queens, who will have no scorers in this 100 free tonight, by earning two A-finalists. Freshman Jakub Jonczyk was 6th in prelims with a 44.11. Their hill to catch the leaders, however, is steeper than that of Drury, who was only able to get one swimmer into the A-final. The Panthers’ Aaron Buckingham was edged out of a potential spot in the B Final, losing a swimoff for 16th to Carson-Newman’s Stephen Parsons, 44.59 to 44.68.
Drury was able to make up some ground there, but perhaps not enough.
Also in the A-final will be Wayne State’s Till Barthel, Bridgeport’s Ruben Gimenez, Tampa’s Jordan Augier, and Simon Fraser’s Adrian VanderHelm.
Women’s 200 Back – prelims
- NCAA D2 Record – Caroline Arakelian, Queens, 1:57.68, earlier this season
Queens junior Caroline Arakelian put herself in position to defend her title in the women’s 200 backstroke with a casual 1:57.68 in prelims – more than two seconds slower than her season-best so far. Close behind her in prelims, though, are a trio of swimmers who are also capable of going 1:55’s (or better) to win this race.
That includes Delta State sophomore Anastasia Klyarovskaya, who at one point had the fastest time in D2 history in this race. She was a 1:58.05 on Saturday morning. Drury’s Katya Rudenko, an Asian Games silver medalist this past summer in the shorter distance, is the 3rd qualifier through in 1:58.18, and Cal Baptist’s Mary Hanson, who has been on-fire, is the 4th qualifier in 1:58.97.
Drury’s Chelsea Staab qualified 5th in 1:58.97, giving the Panthers two qualifiers in the top five. She tied with Wingate’s Vika Arkhipova.
Colorado Mesa’s Mary Saiz sits 7th in 1:59.15, and LIU Post’s Johanna Petterson is 8th in 1:59.20.
Men’s 200 yard backstroke – prelims
- NCAA D2 record – Matthew Josa, Queens, 1:40.74, 2014
With the defending champion Josa opting to cruise through prelims at this year’s meet, a pair of freshmen led the way in qualifying of the men’s 200 backstroke.
Lindenwood rookie Krzysztof Jankiewicz had the fastest morning time by almost two seconds, swimming a 1:42.08. He was followed by Grand Valley State’s Metin Aydin, who was a 1:44.57 for 2nd.
Josa, however, after a spectacular week of competition, remains a heavy favorite despite a 1:44.60 in the heats – doing just enough to safely push through to finals with a decent lane position.
He will be the lone Queens representative in the final, whereas Drury did much better than in the 100 free to put two seniors through into the top 8. Sean Feher qualified 4th in 1:44.94, and Jordi Monsteny-Diez qualified 6th in 1:45.25.
Queens mitigated the damage with three swimmers into the B-Final, but with the Drury two-up, the meet now becomes close enough where every spot in finals could make a huge impact – the final margin is on pace to be single digits.
Women’s 200 Breast – prelims
- NCAA D2 Record – Agniezska Ostrowska, 2:11.45, Drury, 2014
Rebecca Matthews, who won the 100 last night, is well-positioned to double in the breaststroke events with the top qualifying time of 2:13.00. That’s a tick better than her seed time and nearly 2 seconds faster than the rest of the field. Caroline Rademacher qualified second with 2:14.79. The LIU Post senior has had a very strong meet, finishing top-8 in all her events, including a silver medal in the 400 IM.
Lane 3 tonight will belong to Jade Arganbright of California University of Pennsylvania. The sophomore was runner-up in last night’s 100 breast. Arganbright tends to go out in a measured pace and has a strong back half, which allowed her to sneak into second by .03 last night. Qualifying fourth is Alena Rumiantceva of Cal Baptist (2:15.64). Rumiantceva comes in with the top seed time, the only one in the field who has been sub-2:13. She made a run at the 100 title from way out in lane 1 last night, before Matthews took over definitively at the 75 and shut it down.
Narrowly bunched up with Arganbright and Rumiantceva will be A-finalists Hannah Mattar of Ashland (2:15.68), Nicole Weber of Saint Leo (2:15.95), Ewa Dymarek of Lindenwood (2:16.36), and Paulina Szydlo of West Florida (2:16.81). This may be the closest 200 final we have seen over the course of the four-day meet.
Men’s 200 Breast – prelims
- NCAA D2 Record: Nicholas Korth, 1:54.45, UC San Diego, 3/15/2014
The newly-crowned NCAA record-holder in the 100, Nova Southeastern freshman Anton Lobanov, posted the fastest qualifying time of 1:56.91. We can expect to see another record go down in finals, though, as Lobanov has already been 1:53-mid this season.
Delta State’s Matteo Fraschi, seventh in last night’s 100, took 1.5 off his seed time to qualify second with 1:57.58, ahead of Queens’ Nic Eriksson (1:57.73). Piotr Jachowicz of Wayne State, with a 2-second improvement from his seed time, turned in the fourth time of the morning. Jachowicz was runner-up in the 100 final, just ahead of Eriksson.
Miguel Chavez of Missouri S&T (1:57.82), Kacper Pelczynski of Drury (1:57.83), Nikolay Klepikov of Cal Baptist (1:58.45), and Lindenwood’s Mateusz Pacholczyk (1:58.55) make up the rest of the final. In the race for the team title between Queens and Drury, the Panthers had their second near-miss of the day when Banjo Borja was touched out of A final by .05 by Pacholczyk.
Women’s 400 Free Relay – prelims
- NCAA D2 Record: Drury, 3:19.75, 3/12/2011
With the team title all but sewn-up, Queens’ leading postion in the 400 free relay is just icing on the cake. Castro Ortega (49.86), Gordy (49.93), Marshall (51.24), and Arakelian (51.24) outpaced the field in prelims by 1.5 seconds with their 3:22.25.
Drury’s Yu, Janice Poon, Kay Gieseke, and Xu qualified second in 3:23.80. The Panthers’ relay included a 49.78 leadoff from Yu, which is right where she was in her prelims swim, and a 49.0 anchor from Xu, which could spell good things for her in finals tonight.
Wingate’s Armony Dumur, Sofia Petrenko, Leigh-Ann Clark, and Ana Fish combined for 3:25.28 to qualify third. They will be joined in the championship final by Wayne State, UCSD, Cal Baptist, Tampa, and LIU Post.
Men’s 400 Free Relay – prelims
- NCAA D2 Record: Drury, 2:54.37, 3/15/2014
Drury claimed the top spot for tonight’s final with a 2:55.71 prelims swim from Daniel Rzadkowski (44.76), Rodrigo Caceres Acosta (44.38), Olson (43.27), and Feher (43.30). Even that, however, might not be enough to keep Queens from taking the NCAA team title away from them, as the Royals slipped easily into fifth with 2:57.57, a slight improvement from their seed time.
Nova Southeastern put up the second-fastest swim of the morning behind Sickert (43.62), Shane Kleinbeck (44.42), Lobanov (44.50), and Magnus Lundgren (44.12)’s 2:56.66. Florida Southern (Allan Gutierrez, Luis Rojas, Jesus Marin, and Marco Palacios) knocked more than 3 seconds off their seed time to qualify third in 2:57.19. The rest of the A-final contenders are Tampa, Wingate, Wayne State, and Bridgeport.
Women’s 1650 Free – timed finals
- NCAA D2 Record: Kristen Frost, 16:17.66, Southern Connecticut State, 2008
The “slower heats” of the mile produced the time to beat in tonight’s championship heat: 16:50.11 from Bridgeport freshman Annagrazia Bonsanti, which was a 14.5-second improvement from her seed time. Finishing in 16:53.23 was Queens’ Meridith Boudreaux. Defending champion Boudreaux dropped 15 from her seed time but was still a 9 seconds away from her winning time from 2014. Still, she managed to score ahead of Drury’s Allie Reynolds (16:55.29) and Megan Ouhl (16:57.39), both of whom had solid swims and were 7-8 seconds faster than they’d been all season. Reynolds, in particular, was 20 seconds faster than at last year’s championship. Queens’ Nikki Johnson, Sarah Pullen of Drury, McKenzie Stevens of Queens, and Madeline Pitt of West Florida round out the top eight headed into finals tonight.
Men’s 1650 Free – timed finals
- NCAA D2 Record: Mitch Snyder, 15:00.51, Drury, 2009
No major shifts came out of the early heat of the men’s mile. Gustavo Silva Santa of Lindenwood established the time to beat in finals, dropping 8 seconds for 15:26.68. Nova Southeastern’s Blake Woodrow took second in 15:30.22, while Cal Baptist’s Robert Griffith was third in 15:34.09. Only ten swimmers contested the mile in the morning, which means that all but two will wind up in the top 16.