The Texas A&M women’s swimming and diving team posted their best performance in history at the NCAA Championship swim meet on March 22, finishing with 315 points, 117 more than A&M’s previous record, and a total good enough for fourth place.
“I’m just so proud of the girls,” A&M Head Coach Steve Bultman said. “They kept stepping up every session and taking care of business. They just kept coming up with outstanding swims up and down the line up, session after session. It’s exciting and rewarding for all of us because we’ve worked very hard to do this, but it’s something I knew was possible. It was just a matter of getting the girls to believe in what we’re trying to do and in themselves. We have great facilities and great support at A&M. Our motto is ‘Building Champions’ and that’s something we’ve done and will continue striving to do.”
Junior Julia Wilkinson took second in the 100-yard freestyle, .06 seconds behind the winner. Wilkinson’s time of 47.56 seconds was a Texas A&M and Big 12 record. Her second-place finish equals the highest individual performance for an A&M swimmer.
The A&M 400-yard freestyle relay team capped the most successful meet in school history with a Big 12 and A&M record time of 3:13.08. The Aggies finished third behind national champion Arizona, who set a new American record of 3:11.34, and California.
In the 200-yard breaststroke, sophomore Alia Atkinson set a Big 12 and A&M record with a time of 2:09.48, good enough for third place.
The following morning, five Aggie swimmers moved one step closer to the 2008 Olympics with their times at the Post-NCAA Long Course Invitational. Junior Triin Aljand earned an automatic entrance into the Olympic 50-meter freestyle race with a personal best Olympic A qualifying swim of 25.43. She will swim for Estonia this August in Beijing at the Olympic games.
Sophomore Sarah Woods, junior Christine Marshall and senior Erin Mahoney earned tripes in the U.S. Olympic trials as well.
The U.S. Olympic Trials will be held in Omaha, Neb. from June 29-July 6 while the 2008 Olympic Games will be held in Beijing, China, on Aug. 8-24.