March 06, 2008
The back-to-back Big 12 champion Texas A&M women?â„¢s swimming & diving team qualified 12 swimmers to compete at the 2008 NCAA Championships at Ohio State University on March 20-22 according to the official list released by the NCAA on Wednesday night.
The swimmers that will represent Texas A&M in two weeks will be Triin Aljand (Tallinn, Estonia), Alia Atkinson (Pembroke Pines, Fla.), Melissa Hain (Kingwood), Codie Hansen (Arlington), Kristen Heiss (Casper, Wyo.), Marissa Jasek (San Antonio), Erin Mahoney (Wichita, Kan.), Christine Marshall (Newport News, Va.), Emily Neal (Plano), Jenni Stratton (Portland), Julia Wilkinson (Stratford, Ont.), and Sarah Woods (Birmingham, Ala.). Two-time senior co-captain Beth McCullough (Austin) and freshman Maria Sommer (Brenham) will also attend the meet as relay alternates, A&M head coach Steve Bultman said.
The 2008 NCAA Championships is shaping up to easily be the fastest in the history of the collegiate sport. Only 10 swimmers and a single relay in the entire field had NCAA consideration times that were picked up. All the rest of the 270-plus athletes that qualified for the meet did so by exceeding the NCAA automatic qualifying standard, an achievement that was very unexpected and will likely never take place again.
The following is a list of the A&M athletes who automatically qualified for the NCAA Championships, as well as each of the five relays, their times and how they rank in the field heading into the meet; swimmers with consideration times in other races are allowed to swim up to three of those races as long as they compete in the event that they earned entrance into the meet in:
50 Freestyle
Triin Aljand, 22.02, 2nd
100 Freestyle
Julia Wilkinson, 47.80, 1st
Triin Aljand, 48.90, 17th
200 Freestyle
Christine Marshall, 1:45.48, 9th
Julia Wilkinson, 1:45.96, 12th
Kristen Heiss, 1:46.61, 21st
Erin Mahoney, 1:47.03, 27th
500 Freestyle
Jenni Stratton, 4:42.79, 11th
Kristen Heiss, 4:43.53, 15th
Codie Hansen, 4:45.22, 31st
1,650 Freestyle
Jenni Stratton, 16:21.55, 23rd
200 Back
Kristen Heiss, 1:53.49, 4th
Emily Neal, 1:56.53, 21st
100 Breast
Alia Atkinson, 1:00.68, 8th
200 Breast
Alia Atkinson, 2:10.87, 5th
100 Fly
Triin Aljand, 52.26, 5th
200 Fly
Christine Marshall, 1:57.56, 12th
200 IM
Julia Wilkinson, 1:56.12, 4th
Christine Marshall, 1:58.98, 18th
400 IM
Melissa Hain, 4:11.74, 13th
Jenni Stratton, 4:12.68, 19th
Emily Neal, 4:13.61, 25th
200 Freestyle Relay, 1:29.74, 8th
400 Freestyle Relay, 3:15.55, 5th
800 Freestyle Relay, 7:05.08, 6th
200 Medley Relay, 1:38.76, 8th
400 Medley Relay, 3:35.04, 8th