AUSTIN, Texas — Four members of the LSU swimming and diving team competed at the first day of the 2002 NCAA Championships held at the Jamail-Texas Swimming Center in Austin, Texas.
LSU is 28th after the first day of competition, while conference rivals Auburn and Georgia are holding the top two spots in the standings. Texas, Stanford and Arizona round out the top five. Four NCAA records were set on Thursday, including two by Georgia.
In the 1-meter diving competition on Thursday morning, LSU All-American Jamie Watkins finished 10th in the preliminary round with a score of 272.75, just missing the cut to go to the finals in the evening. The top eight in the event advanced to the finals. Junior Barb Gorst placed 26th in the prelims of the event with a mark of 231.20. Watkins was the 1-meter champion in the event in 2000.
Sophomore Stephanie Smith swam in the 500-yard freestyle on Thursday but failed to make the finals. Senior Mandy Leach competed in the 50-yard freestyle but did not make the finals either. Neither Leach or Smith finished in the top 16 in the events.
Auburn junior Maggie Bowen swam the 200-yard individual medley in a NCAA record-time of 1:53.91, winning the event and breaking her record of 1:55.49 set in last season’s championships. Baton Rouge native and 17-time Stanford All-American Shelly Ripple finished second behind Bowen with a time of 1:55.58. Ripple, a former star at Parkview Baptist high school, teamed with three others to lead Stanford to a first-place finish in the 400-yard medley relay on Thursday. Stanford set an NCAA record by winning the relay in a time of 3:31.74. The previous record was 3:32.43 by Stanford last season.
Georgia junior Maritza Correia won the 50-freestyle and set an NCAA record with a time of 21.69, breaking the 21.77 swam by former Colorado State All-American Amy Van Dyken in 1994. Georgia also won the 200-yard freestyle relay with a time of 1:28.74 and set an NCAA record in the process. The previous record was 1:28.89 which Texas swam in 2001.
The championships continues on Friday with preliminaries beginning in the morning and the finals to follow on Friday evening. The championships will wrap up on Saturday. Leach will compete in the 100-yard butterfly on Friday, an event in which she is ranked 11th in the nation, and the 100-yard freestyle, where she is ranked 20th. Smith will swim the 1,650-freestyle, in which she is ranked 20th.
LSU finished 16th at the championships last season and has finished in the top 20 in seven of the past nine seasons.