The University of Texas at Austin Athletics
University of Texas
NCAA Championships
Women’s Swimming and Diving Preview: NCAA Championships
03.17.2014 | Women's Swimming and Diving
Big 12 champions begins competition Thursday in Minneapolis.
WHAT: Nine-time national champion and two-time defending Big 12 champion Texas wraps its season this week at the NCAA Championships.
WHEN: Thursday, March 20 through Saturday, March 22 (11 a.m. CT prelims/7 p.m. finals)
WHERE: University Aquatic Center – Minneapolis, Minn.
CHAMPIONSHIPS INFORMATION: CLICK HERE
LIVE VIDEO
A live video stream will be available at GopherSports.com during all preliminary sessions and the Thursday finals session. ESPN3.com will air a live video stream during the Friday and Saturday evening finals sessions. ESPNU will air a tape-delayed telecast at a later date.
NCAA CHAMPIONSHIPS HISTORY
Texas has won seven NCAA women's swimming and diving team championship in addition to a pair of AIAW national championships. UT won its last national title in 1991 when it set a meet record with 746 points. Texas placed ninth with 186 points at the 2013 NCAA Championships in Indianapolis.
In addition to its nine national championships, Texas has registered three NCAA runner-up finishes and three third-place showings. Texas has finished in the top-five at 14 of 30 NCAA Championship meets.
Texas boasts 70 NCAA individual and relay championships.
TEXAS' NCAA CHAMPIONSHIPS QUALIFIERS
Nine swimmers and three divers will represent Texas at the NCAA Championships Additionally, Texas has qualified all five relays to compete at the national meet.
Seniors All-Americans Ellen Lobb, Lily Moldenhauer and Samantha Tucker will make their fourth consecutive appearances at the NCAA Championships, and senior All-American Alex Hooper will compete individually for the first time at a NCAA Championship meet.
Lobb is seeded 12th nationally in the 50 freestyle (22.04 and 29th nationally in the 100 butterfly (52.53). The Houston native holds the 35th seed in the 100 freestyle (48.76). Moldenhauer, UT's new record holder in the 100-yard backstroke, is seeded seventh nationally in that event at 51.48. Her 12th-seeded time of 51.92 in the 100 butterfly is UT's third-fastest mark all-time in the event.
Tucker, who earned her first individual All-America certificate last season, is seeded 16th in the 200 freestyle at 1:44.55. Hooper joined Tucker last season to earn All-America honors in the 800 freestyle relay. The Englishwoman is seeded 23rd in the 200 freestyle at 1:45.17.
Juniors Gretchen Jaques, Kelsey LeNeave and Kaitlin Pawlowicz will make their third consecutive NCAA Championships appearances. Jaques is seeded 11th in the 100 breaststroke at 59.39 and is one of only three Texas women ever to break one minute in the event. LeNeave is seeded 28th in the 200 freestyle at 1:45.41. Pawlowicz holds top-25 national seeds in the 1,650 freestyle (24th, 16:12.39) and the 400 IM (24th, 4:09.56).
Making their respective NCAA Championships debuts will be freshmen Madisyn Cox and Tasija Karosas. Cox ranks 10th nationally in the 200 IM (1:56.29), and the Lubbock native holds the 21st seed in the 400 IM at 4:09.25. Karosas, the Big 12 champion in the 200 backstroke, is seeded 11th in that event at 1:53.49.
Texas holds top-12 seed times in four of the five relays contested at the NCAA Championships.
DIVERS SWEEP NCAA ZONE "D" DIVING MEET
The Texas divers took a liking to the diving boards at Minnesota's University Aquatic Center last week at the NCAA Zone "D" Diving Meet, where three Longhorns qualified for the NCAA Championships.
Senior Maren Taylor swept the springboard events and earned her fourth trip to the NCAA Championships in as many attempts. Junior Emma Ivory-Ganja earned her first trip to the NCAA Championships as a Longhorn after earning All-America honors on platform last season for UCLA.
Freshman Murphy Bromberg handily won the platform competition to become the third Longhorn to qualify for the national meet. Texas will take three divers to the NCAA Championships for the first time since 2009 (Shelby Cullinan, Kathryn Kelly and Jessica Livingston).
UT won its most recent NCAA diving title at Minnesota's University Aquatic Center in 2007 when Jessica Livingston won the platform event.
TEXAS WINS SECOND STRAIGHT BIG 12 TITLE
Texas claimed its second straight team title earlier this month at the Big 12 Championships.
The Longhorns claimed the team crown with 1,109.5 points. Maren Taylor was selected as the Women's Diver of the Meet while swimmer Madisyn Cox was selected as the Women's Newcomer of the Meet.
MOLDENHAUER'S MEET FOR THE RECORD BOOK
Senior Lily Moldenhauer toppled Big 12, school and Big 12 meet records with a pair of strong swims at the Big 12 Championships.
The San Antonio native toppled UT's school mark in the 100 backstroke previously held by two-time Olympian Kathleen Hersey. Moldenhauer clocked 51.55 in the event's preliminary round to eclipse Hersey's school mark of 51.78. Moldenhauer lowered the school mark and snagged the league and meet records in the event with a winning time of 51.48 in the finals.
Later the same evening (Feb. 28), Moldenhauer claimed Hersey's meet record in the 100 butterfly and won the event in 51.92 seconds.
TEXAS DIVERS WIN TEAM TITLE AT USA DIVING WINTER NATIONALS
The Longhorns' women's divers joined the UT men to win the combined team title for a second straight year at the USA Diving Winter National Championships (Dec. 17-22).
Led by individual event champions Maren Taylor and Murphy Bromberg, the UT women finished second in the women's team standings. Taylor won the individual three-meter title with a cumulative total of 923.90 points and earned a spot on the U.S. roster for this summer's FINA World Cup in Shanghai, China.
Joining Taylor in Shanghai will be freshman Murphy Bromberg, who earned her spot on the U.S. World Cup roster by winning the platform event at the USA Diving Winter Nationals. Taylor and Bromberg joined Texas freshman Michael Hixon and Texas-Ex Troy Dumais on the U.S. team at the 2013 FINA World Championships in Barcelona, Spain. Taylor was a finalist in the three-meter event in Barcelona while Bromberg was a finalist in the synchronized platform event.
In her first season with the Longhorns after transferring from UCLA, junior Emma Ivory-Ganja won bronze in the three-meter event at the USA Diving Winter Nationals. Bromberg added a runner-up finish alongside former Ohio State diver Cheyenne Cousineau in the synchro platform event.
TEXAS INVITE YIELDS NCAA AUTOMATIC QUALIFIERS
The Longhorns reaped the fruits of their rigorous fall training at the annual Texas Invitational (Dec. 5-7), where they registered a pair of NCAA automatic-qualifying marks.
UT opened the second night of the Texas Invite with a NCAA automatic qualifier in the 200 medley relay, where Lily Moldenhauer, Gretchen Jaques, Skylar Smith and Ellen Lobb finished in 1:37.60, less than a tenth of a second off of USC's winning time.
Samantha Tucker added a top-10 national mark in the 200 freestyle and placed second overall at 1:44.63. Tucker joined Lobb, Moldenhauer and Jaques to post a NCAA automatic-qualifying mark in the 400 freestyle relay at 3:15.93.
THE 2013-14 LONGHORNS: Under second-year head coach Carol Capitani (cap-it-TAN-ee), second-year assistant coach Roric Fink and 20th year diving coach Matt Scoggin, Texas returns eight All-Americans from the 2012-13 team that won the Big 12 Championship and placed ninth at the NCAA Championships.
Senior Samantha Tucker collected her first individual All-America selection in the 200 freestyle at the 2013 NCAA Championships. Her All-America classmates include Alex Hooper, Ellen Lobb, Lily Moldenhauer. Tucker has joined Lobb, Hooper and Moldenhauer to earn multiple All-America honors in relay events over the past three seasons.
Senior Maren Taylor leads a traditionally strong corps of Longhorn divers. The Arlington, Va., native made a triumphant return to the sport last season after rehabilitating a dislocated right elbow sustained at the 2011 NCAA Championships.
Taylor earned All-America honors in the one-meter and platform diving events last season before earning a spot on the U.S. roster to compete at the FINA World Championships, where she placed 11th in the three-meter event. Freshman Murphy Bromberg also represented the U.S. at Worlds in Barcelona and placed seventh in the synchronized platform diving event with Ohio State's Cheyenne Cousineau.
Sophomore diver Meghan Houston added a bronze medal in the three-meter synchronized diving event at the World University Games in Kazan, Russia.
All totaled, Texas welcomes 12 newcomers in the form of 10 true freshman and two transfers. Junior diver Emma Ivory-Ganja earned All-America honors in the three-meter and platform diving events last season at UCLA. Junior swimmer Kimmy Phillips was an NCAA Championships qualifier last season for North Texas.
