The University of Texas at Austin Athletics
University of Texas
Big 12 Championships
No. 6 Women's Swimming and Diving wins third consecutive Big 12 title
03.01.2015 | Women's Swimming and Diving
Longhorns complete their first sweep of the conference meet in the event’s 19-year history.
VIDEO: Big 12 Championships Sights & Sounds
AUSTIN, Texas – No. 6 Texas won all seven events Saturday evening and completed its first sweep of the Big 12 Championships Saturday evening at UT's Lee and Joe Jamail Texas Swimming Center.
Texas won its 13th Big 12 Conference team title and third consecutive league crown with 1,082.5 points. Iowa State placed second with 618.5 points while Kansas took third with 589 points. West Virginia took fourth with 481 points and TCU placed fifth with 458 points.
The swimming coaches voted senior Gretchen Jaques as the Women's Swimmer of the Meet and sophomore Murphy Bromberg was named the Women's Diver of the Meet. Coaches selected UT's Matt Scoggin as the Women's Diving Coach of the Meet.
Bromberg topped her school and Big 12 records in the platform diving event and ran away with the victory with 411.30 points. The two-time U.S. senior national champion yielded perfect scores from six of the seven judges on her second dive, a back, three-and-a-half somersault in the tuck position for 99.00 points. The All-American netted 70 points or better on all five of her dives on her way to victory.
Sophomore Tasija Karosas nearly took down Kathleen Hersey's school record in the 200 backstroke and won her second straight league crown in that event at 1:52.74, just off of Hersey's mark of 1:52.58. Sophomore Rebecca Baxley added a sixth-place time of 1:59.23.
Freshman Rebecca Millard collected her first Big 12 individual title and won the 100 freestyle in a personal-best time of 48.84. She became the first Texas freshman to win a league crown in the 100 freestyle since Karlee Bispo in 2009. Freshman Mimi Schneider took second in 49.74 while sophomore MaKayla Markey placed fifth at 50.56.
Senior Kaitlin Pawlowicz captured her second career Big 12 title and first in the 1,650 freestyle Saturday evening in 16:01.92, good for the fifth-fastest swim in school history. In December, Pawlowicz became just the third Longhorn ever to break 16 minutes in the event when she clocked 15:57.37 at the Texas Invitational. Sophomore Smacker Miles added a fourth-place mark of 16:42.06. Jaques nailed down her second straight league crown in the 200 breaststroke and led a one-two Texas finish atop the event in 2:08.94 for her third league title of the meet. All-America sophomore Madisyn Cox took second in 2:11.42 while sophomore Jordan Surhoff placed fourth at 2:14.22.
Senior Kelsey LeNeave collected her second individual title of the meet and the first of her career in the 200 butterfly at 1:56.21. Classmate Skylar Smith followed in fifth at 2:00.86.
Texas capped the meet with its victory in the 400 freestyle relay (Millard 49.08, Karosas 49.54, Schneider 49.47, Jaques 48.91) at 3:17.00, just off of the NCAA automatic-qualifying cut of 3:16.41.
Players Mentioned
