2017 NCAA Division II Women’s Meet: Scoring out the Psych Sheet

Division II Women’s Swimming and Diving Championships

• March 8-11, 2017
• Birmingham CrossPlex, Birmingham, Alabama
• Prelims 10:30 AM, Finals 6 PM – U.S. Central Time Zone (GMT -6 currently)
• Event schedule
• Real-time results – diving
• Real-time results – swimming
• Video link (expected to be available when meet starts)
• Championship Central

Once again we begin our annual exercise of scoring out the NCAA psych sheets with the 2017 Division II Women’s Championship, which is to be held March 8-11 at the at the Birmingham CrossPlex and hosted jointly by the University of Alabama in Huntsville and the city of Birmingham. (You can see the men’s psych sheet scoring here.)

183 swimmers from 48 teams have been selected to compete at the Division II women’s meet. Wingate leads the field with 12 invited swimmers, followed by Queens University of Charlotte (11), Lindenwood (11), Delta State (10), UC San Diego (10), Nova S’eastern (9), and Drury (8).

Queens dominated the 2016 Division II Championship, winning five individual events and two relays. Though they graduated top scorers Patri Castro Ortega, Brittany Phelan, and Caroline Arakelian, the Royals have good depth this year and have four relays seeded in the top 2. Queens, a relatively latecomer to collegiate swimming, first fielding a team in 2011, won the national championship in 2015 and 2016 and are looking to extend their streak to three this year with returning stars Hannah Peiffer, Mckenzie Stevens, Georgia DaCruz, Josephina Lorda, Kyrie Dobson, and Michelle Prayson.

While Queens tops our psych sheet predictions, it should be a much closer meet this year than in 2016. A young Drury squad, led by freshman Bailee Nunn, is hoping to snap Queens’ streak. Nunn is the top seed in four events (100/200 breast, 100 fly, and 200 IM), and the Panthers come in with three top-seeded relays, as well. Drury will also count on Yekaterina Rudenko, Megan Ouhl, Ella Bryan, and Erica Dahlgren to help them win a team title in 2017.

Wingate, who won three relays in 2016, returns seniors Viktoriya Arkhipova, Olga Kosheleva, and Jessika Weiss; all contributed heavily to the Bulldogs’ second-place team finish last year. Alexis Divelbiss and freshman Ebba Stillman are expected to score in several events this year. Nova Southeastern finished 11th last year, but the Sharks have firepower in returning senior Emma Wahlstrom and juniors Courtney Deveny and Malin Westman. Last year’s 10th-place Delta State will feature seniors Melanie Tombers and Anastasia Klyarovskaya, as well as sophomore Caroline Jouisse and freshman Maria Santis in their quest to unseat the leaders.

While we cannot yet add diving point to our totals, we can remind readers that last year, Grand Valley State scored 60 points in two diving events. They were followed by Clarion (48), West Florida (40), Wayne State (33), Lindenwood (30), Northern Michigan (26), Henderson State (20), Tiffin (16), Bentley (13), and Colorado Mesa (12).

A change in NCAA rules made scoring the DII psych sheets easier this year: schools are no longer allowed to over-enter individual events. As a reminder, unlike in Divisions I and III, Division II rules allow a swimmer to compete in up to four individual events. Swimmers are still held to a seven-event limit, but it is up to the individual teams to determine where their swimmers are most useful: individual events or relays.

Here is the psych sheet scored –without diving– for the 2017 NCAA Division II Women’s Championships:

*does not include 310 diving points