Women's Swimming
Women's Swimming: Relay title highlights second day of 2008 NCAA Championships
Kristen Hohl reacts after the NCAA record-setting 200 medley relay swim on Friday night.
Date: March 14, 2008
Location: OXFORD, Ohio
Records continue to fall at the 2008 NCAA Division III Swimming & Diving Championships and this time the Big Red are in on the action. After two of three nights at the national meet the Big Red sits in third place with 240 points. They trail second place Amherst by only 15 points while Kenyon leads with 389.5 points.
The Denison 200 medley relay team which is comprised of sophomore Olivia Zaleski (Corry, Pa./Corry Area), freshman Ksenia Golovkina (Newton, Mass./South), sophomore Kate Rich (McMurray, Pa./Peters Township) and junior Kristen Hohl (Winfield, Ill./Wheaton North) set a new NCAA record with a time of 1:43.19. The DU relay team broke a record previously held by Denison's Leah Favret, Mollie Parrish, Alyssa Heidinger and Erin Stanley that was set at the 2001 NCAA Championships in Buffalo, N.Y.
The title was highlighted by Rich's 24.74 split in the butterfly quarter of the relay. Hohl closed out the race with a 22.92 split in the freestyle.
Zaleski and Rich would return in the 100 butterfly finals and turn in third and sixth place finishes, respectively. Zaleski covered the 100 yards in 55.88 seconds and Rich touched in 56.48. Senior Christine Wissink (Cortland, N.Y./Cortland) failed to reach the finals but placed 27th overall.
Junior Annamarie Novinger (Longmont, Colo./Niwot) entered the meet with the ninth fastest time in the 200 freestyle at 1:53.75 and lowered that to 1:52.40 to place sixth in the event and earn 13 points for Denison.
Rookie breaststroker Golovkina also lowered her seeded time in the 100 breaststroke to end up third overall thanks to her time of 1:04.29. Kathy Faingold (Wexford, Pa./North Allegheny) followed Golovkina in 11th place at 1:06.03 and Wissink checked in 20th at 1:07.17.
Denison didn't have a swimmer reach the finals in the 100 backstroke or the 400 IM but four swimmers posted strong swims in preliminaries. Senior Ginny Walsh (Austin, Texas/St. Andrews) placed 19th in the 400 IM with a time of 4:37.62 and fellow senior Kacey Centrella (Douglassville, Pa./Boyertown) finished in 28th place. The 100 back saw another senior, Anna Comella (Dover, Ohio/Dover) place 20th in 59.04 while freshman Bethany Sabourin (Troy, Mich./Troy Athens) finished 29th.
The final event of the night was the 800 freestyle relay which was won by Amherst College with an NCAA record time of 7:22.78. Denison was led by Novinger, Hohl, Faingold and Rich in the event and the foursome placed fifth overall with a time of 7:37.57. The 12-point differential was enough to keep Amherst in front of the Big Red heading into Saturday.
The third and final day of competition at the 2008 NCAA Division III Swimming & Diving Championships will begin with preliminaries at 11 a.m. at the Corwin M. Nixon Aquatic Center on the campus of Miami University.