BATON ROUGE — Three members of the LSU women’s swimming team will participate in the 2003 NCAA Division I Swimming and Diving Championships from March 20-22 in Auburn, Ala.
Stephanie Smith, Laura Jo Leininger, and Cissy Schepens have all qualified and divers Barb Gorst and Jessica Wantz will have a chance to qualify this weekend at the 2003 NCAA Diving Regional in Auburn. The diving regional will be held from Friday through Sunday at the James E. Martin Aquatics Center in Auburn, also the site of the 2003 NCAA Championships.
Schepens will be making her fourth-career NCAA Championships appearance. She will swim in the 200-yard breaststroke. She is ranked 16th in the nation in the event and moved up to second on LSU’s all-time top 10 list in the event earlier this season.
Leininger will make her first appearance at the NCAA’s and will swim in the 100-yard butterfly. She is currently ranked 27th in the nation in the event. Smith, a 2002 Honorable Mention All-American in the 1650-yard freestyle, will swim in the same event this season as well as the 500-yard freestyle. Smith is ranked 13th nationally in the 1650.
Smith set school records in the 500, 1000, and 1650-yard freestyle this season. She swam the 500 in a time of 4:47.75, the 1000 in 9:50.51 and the 1650 in 16:21.41. She finished 13th in the 1650 last year at the NCAA Championships.
Sophomore Lindsay Staak just missed making her first NCAA Championships in the 100-yard backstroke and is listed as an alternate. Staak, a native of Duluth, Ga., owns the school record in the 100 back.
“We are excited to have these three girls invited to the NCAA Championships because all three have worked extremely hard this year and I am glad to see that it paid off for them,” said LSU head coach Jeff Cavana. “They are all excited about going to the NCAA’s and are looking forward to trying to improve upon their swims from SEC’s.”
An announcement on the men’s qualifiers will be made this week. The 2003 Division 1 Men’s NCAA Championships will be held from March 27-29 in Austin, Texas.