Women's Swimming
Women's Swimming & Diving: 2008 NCAC Championship Preview
Head Coach Gregg Parini talks things over with junior Annamarie Novinger. Novinger is the defending NCAC champion in the 200 free and was a part of last year's 800 free relay championship.
Date: February 12, 2008
Location: GRANVILLE
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The Big Red women's swimming and diving team's first North Coast Athletic Conference Championship took place in 2004. The current batch of DU seniors were seniors in high school during that momentous occasion and after three consecutive strong showings at the conference meet they seem primed to give Kenyon another run for their money.
Junior Kristen Hohl (Winfield, Ill./Wheaton North) and sophomore Olivia Zaleski (Corry, Pa./Corry Area) lead the DU charge in the sprint freestyle events. Hohl has the team's top times in the 50 and 100 free at 24.15 seconds and 52.23 seconds, respectively. Zaleski was the runner-up in the 50 and 100 free last year at the NCAC Championships. Hohl placed third in the 100 freestyle.
In the 200 freestyle veteran Annamarie Novinger (Longmont, Colo./Niwot) returns and is looking to defend her crown from last year. Novinger has the team's best time at 1:54.34 and has two previous NCAC Championships to her credit. Novinger will also compete in the 500 freestyle along with sophomore Jenny Cunningham (Gainesville, Fla./Gainesville), who placed second last year with a time of 5:06.69.
The Big Red are perennial powers in the butterfly events and they return senior defending NCAC champ Christine Wissink (Cortland, N.Y./Cortland) who took home gold last year with a time of 2:06.77. Senior Kasey Centrella (Douglassville, Pa./Boyertown Area) and junior Lauren McKenna (Darien, Conn./Darien) also will challenge in the 200 fly. They own Denison's top-two performances this season and both times rank in the top-15 in Division III.
In the 100 butterfly Zaleski notched a bronze medal performance last season and has already reached her NCAA provisional qualifying time this season with a 57.92 second swim. Sophomore Kate Rich (McMurray, Pa./Peters Township), McKenna and Wissink will also be gunning for the 100 fly crown.
The butterfly events have always been a strength for Denison women's swimming but the new kids on the block just might be their strong stable of breaststroke swimmers led by freshman Ksenia Golovkina (Newton, Mass./Newton South) and sophomore Kathy Faingold (Wexford, Pa./North Allegheny). Golovkina is the current CollegeSwimming.com Division III national swimmer of the week after winning the 200 breaststroke and placing second in the 100 breaststroke at the University of Pittsburgh Invitational.
Faingold is the returning NCAC runner-up in the 100 and 200 breaststroke. She has the seventh fastest time in Division III in the 200 breast at 2:25.08.
In the backstroke events another freshman, Bethany Sabourin (Troy, Mich./Troy Athens), leads DU along with veterans Anna Comella (Dover, Ohio/Dover), Savannah Mortensen (Albuquerque, N.M./Albuquerque) and Ginny Walsh (Austin, Texas/St. Andrews). Sabourin has the sixth-fastest time in the nation in the 100 backstroke while Mortensen has the team's best time in the 200 backstroke this season. Comella, an NCAA qualifier last season, took third place in the 100 backstroke at the NCAC Championships with a time of 58.79 seconds.
Walsh is back for her fourth conference championship meet and she will be looking to defend her crown in the 400 individual medley. Last year she blew away the competition with a time of 4:33.98, winning by more than five seconds. Freshman Lauren Pipkin (Lawrence, Kan./Free State) will also challenge in this event. In the 200 IM, Faingold has the nation's 14th fastest time and Walsh has the experience, placing second in 2007 and third in 2006.
In the women's mile freshman Taylor Blake (Palm Beach Gardens, Fla./Suncoast Community) has the team's top-time at 17:46.95 which is a provisional qualifying time. Last year's runner-up, Cunningham will compete along with Laura Menard (Mukilteo, Wash./Kamiak).
The diving portion of the competition will be up to a pair of rookies, Samantha Salas (Fairfax, Va./ and Elizabeth Litwak. Salas owns the team's top scores in both the one and three-meter dives this year with her best score (237.73) coming in the three-meter. Denison's last champion in either of the dive events came from Nikki Weaver in 2005.
Last year at the NCAC Championships the DU 800 freestyle and 400 medley relay teams took home championships. All but one swimmer on those teams (Meg Cassell) returns to this year's championship. The 400 free relay team of Brittany Oxley (Knoxville, Tenn./Bearden), Hohl, Zaleski and Novinger has the nation's top time of 3:32.60 and are hungry to break a seven-year championship drought in this event.
Denison will begin the three-day championship meet on Thursday (Feb. 14) with preliminaries beginning at 10 a.m. each day and finals taking place each night at 6:30 p.m. Click the "more information" link at the top of the page to visit the official championship page maintained by Wittenberg University.