BATON ROUGE — The No. 23 LSU Women’s Swimming and Diving Team will send seven athletes to the NCAA Women’s Swimming and Diving Championships slated for March 15-17 at the Martin Aquatics Center in Auburn, Ala.
“I think we have an opportunity to score some points,” Swimming Coach Dave Geyer said. “We want to go and compete at the highest level possible. The team had a couple of setbacks recently, but I think the women going there are focused and ready to go. We’ll see how we can produce at the national level.”
The Lady Tigers are fresh off the program’s second consecutive fifth place finish at the SEC Championships after the team recorded 347 points. The conference run of back-to-back top-five finishes represented the finest SEC finishes for LSU since the 1992-1993 and 1993-1994 seasons.
Last year, LSU left the NCAA Championships in 14th place with 89 points, the first top-15 finish in program history since the 1992-93 campaign and fifth overall.
Six swimmers and one diver will represent LSU’s contingent. The team is led by returning NCAA qualifiers senior Samantha Goates, junior Sara Haley and sophomore Torrey Bussey. In addition, sophomore Rainey White and freshmen Amber Carter and Marlene Niemi will be making their NCAA debuts.
Freshman diver Alex Bettridge also will be competing for the first time after punching a ticket to the national championships at the NCAA Zone ‘D’ Regionals.
Bettridge, the SEC Female Freshman Diver of the Year, qualified for the NCAA Championships after scoring a 12-dive total of 578.20 in a fourth place finish on the one-meter. She qualified for the final round after a six-dive preliminary mark of 283.85, and posted a six-dive final total of 294.35.
At the SEC Championships, the Austin, Texas native recorded a bronze medal finish (336.85) on the three-meter springboard, shattering the program’s three-meter record. She finished sixth on the one-meter (302.60) as well.
“Our expectation and goal for Alex this year was to get to this opportunity,” Diving Coach Doug Shaffer said. “Now this is kind of fun and gravy. This is what we worked hard for all year. She wants to score. She has the capability of doing that in two of her three events.”
“I knew that when she got into an environment where she was a student athlete and working hard in the pool, that she should blossom. This is exactly what we want to see. She is the type of caliber athlete that you would like to recruit.”
Haley will swim in the 100 butterfly and 200 butterfly. At the conference meet, she produced a bronze medal in the 200 fly, her second in as many seasons.
The El Dorado Hills, Calif. native delivered a program-low 1:56.67 in the effort. She also owns the program’s third lowest 100 fly mark of 53.17, which she set during her sophomore season at the SEC Championships.
In last year’s NCAA Championships, Haley registered a 19th place finish in the 200 fly (1:57.50). She also had a hand in LSU’s program breaking 400 medley (3:37.29).
Bussey will swim in the 200 individual medley, the 100 breaststroke and the 200 breast. She ended her SEC’s 200 IM run in eighth place with a time of 1:59.77. She posted her season-low and the fourth fastest mark in the prelims with a time of 1:58.53. Her career-low in the event (1:58.23) from last season’s conference meet is the program’s best.
At the SEC Championships, the Cary, N.C. native captured the ‘B’ Final of the 100 breast with the program’s second best mark of 1:01.00.
Bussey placed 25th in the 200 IM (1:59.21) and 28th in the 100 breast (1:01.38) at the national meet last season. She also is the program’s record holder in the 200 breast (2:11.72) after her 23rd place finish at last year’s NCAA Championships.
Goates, Carter, Niemi and White qualified through the team’s 200 free relay mark of 1:29.22. All four swimmers recorded sub-23 second 50 free times in individual competition at the SEC Championships. Three of the athletes notched points for LSU in the 50 free.
Goates, a Four-Time NCAA Honorable Mention, owns the third fastest 50 free mark in the program annals with a time of 22.55. During her sophomore and junior seasons, Goates was instrumental in helping the Tigers to back-to-back top-16 finishes in the 200 free relay and 200 medley relay.
At SEC’s, the Exeter, Calif. native finished 11th in the 50 free with a season low of 22.81. In the 100 free, Goates maintains a career-low time of 49.79, which she set at the Tennessee Invitational in November.
Niemi earned All-SEC Freshman honors after an eighth place finish in the 50 free (23.03). She snuck into the ‘A’ Final after posting LSU’s fifth best time of 22.66 in the prelims.
Carter also enjoyed a fine SEC Championships and finished in the ‘B’ Final of the 50 free with a time of 23.53. She set the program’s sixth best mark in the event in the prelims (22.86).
The Houston, Texas native also has emerged in the 100 fly and posted the 10th fastest preliminary mark (54.01), which is eighth best in the program. She finished the event in 15th with a mark of 54.43.
As an alternate, White will only be able to compete in the 200 free relay. She finished 19th in the 50 free (22.92) at the conference meet with the program’s seventh best mark. She also finished 10th in the 100 fly (54.08) with the ninth best time in the program’s history at the SEC Championships.
Goates, Carter, Bussey and Niemi will also swim the 200 medley relay.
Junior swimmer and 2011 NCAA First-Team All-American Amanda Kendall was a late scratch after sustaining a non-swimming related injury that required surgery. No further information regarding Kendall is available at this time.
Auburn will stream live video, free of charge, the preliminary sessions each of the three days and finals on Thursday night. ESPN has the rights to stream Friday and Saturday finals and will do so at ESPN3.com
Thursday Finals:
http://ulive.cbssports.com/index-ncaa.html?media=308984
Thursday Prelims:
http://ulive.cbssports.com/index-ncaa.html?media=303037
Friday Prelims:
http://ulive.cbssports.com/index-ncaa.html?media=303038
Saturday Prelims:
http://ulive.cbssports.com/index-ncaa.html?media=303039
After each session, results will be available here: http://www.ncaa.com/championships/swimming-women/d1
The Official NCAA DI Women’s Swimming and Diving Championships program will be available soon at www.ncaa.com/DIWomensSwimDive.
For more information on the LSU Swimming and Diving program, please visit LSUSports.net, follow @LSUSwimDive on Twitter or ‘like’ LSU Swimming and Diving on Facebook.