BATON ROUGE — Seniors Katherine Noland, Katie Gilmore and Monica McJunkin and sophomore Jane Trepp will represent the LSU women’s swimming and diving team at the 2009 NCAA Championships, beginning Thursday in College Station, Texas.
Texas A&M will host the three-day competition in its Student Rec Center Natatorium, a venue the Lady Tigers have competed in twice already this season. The preliminaries will begin each day at 11 a.m. (CDT) with the finals following at 7 p.m. A link to live results will be posted on www.LSUsports.net.
“It’s exciting to be back at the NCAA meet, especially with our four relays being so strong and the potential for individual point scorers as well,” LSU head coach Adam Schmitt said. “We’re looking forward to successful meet this weekend.”
The Lady Tigers have the potential to rack up a bunch of points in relay competition as the foursome qualified to swim in four of the five relays ? the 200- and 400-yard freestyle relays and the 200- and 400-yard medley relays. The group combined to break school records in three of those four events at the SEC Championships last month, and McJunkin, Trepp and Noland were part of the program’s record-setting 400 medley relay squad.
In addition, all four swimmers have qualified in individual competition, and three will swim the maximum of three individual races.
Trepp, who is making her first career appearance at NCAA’s, will compete in three separate disciplines as the versatile talent earned the right to swim in the 50 freestyle, 100 butterfly and 100 breaststroke. The Estonian claimed school records with top-11 finishes in all three races at SEC’s. Furthermore, she’ll swim the breaststroke leg on both medley relays.
Noland and Gilmore will each be making their third trip to the national meet. Noland, a three-time All-American, will compete in the 100 and 200 frees and the 100 fly. The team co-captain holds LSU’s all-time mark in the 100 free, 49.62 seconds.
Gilmore, also a three-time All-American, qualified in the 50 and 100 frees and the 100 fly. Moreover, the duo will comprise the back end of the medley relays with the butterfly and freestyle legs.
McJunkin, the squad’s top backstroker, enters the competition with the highest seed of the four qualifiers. A product of Charlotte, N.C., McJunkin is seeded 23rd in the 100 backstroke after breaking the program record at SEC’s with a time of 53.07.
2009 NCAA Championships — Schedule of Events
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Prelims ? 11 a.m. (CDT)
200-yard Freestyle Relay
500-yard Freestyle
200-yard Individual Medley
50-yard Freestyle
400-yard Medley Relay
One-meter Diving (1:30 p.m.)
Finals ? 7 p.m.
200-yard Freestyle Relay
500-yard Freestyle
200-yard Individual Medley
50-yard Freestyle
One-meter Diving
400-yard Medley Relay
Friday, March 20, 2009
Prelims ? 11 a.m.
200-yard Medley Relay
400-yard Individual Medley
100-yard Butterfly
200-yard Freestyle
100-yard Breaststroke
100-yard Backstroke
800-yard Freestyle Relay (All but last three heats of timed finals)
Three-meter Diving (1:30 p.m.)
Finals ? 7 p.m.
200-yard Medley Relay
400-yard Individual Medley
100-yard Butterfly
200-yard Freestyle
100-yard Breaststroke
100-yard Backstroke
Three-meter Diving
800-yard Freestyle Relay (Last three heats of timed finals)
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Prelims ? 11 a.m.
200-yard Backstroke
100-yard Freestyle
200-yard Breaststroke
200-yard Butterfly
400-yard Freestyle Relay
Platform Diving (1:30 p.m.)
1,650-yard Freestyle (All but last heat of timed finals)
Finals ? 7 p.m.
1,650-yard Freestyle (Last heat of timed finals)
200-yard Backstroke
100-yard Freestyle
200-yard Breaststroke
200-yard Butterfly
Platform Diving
400-yard Freestyle Relay