COLUMBUS, Ohio – Members of the Ohio State women’s swimming team who are seeking to improve NCAA qualification times will compete Sunday at noon at the Ohio State “last chance” meet at the McCorkle Aquatic Pavilion. Swimmers from Michigan and Toledo will also be vying to improve times that will pull them into the NCAA championships field.

The 2011 NCAA championships are March 17-19 at the Lee and Joe Jamail Texas Swimming Center in Austin, Texas. Buckeyes looking to make the championships field this weekend and are on the bubble of qualifying include the following.

• Emily Creran, a sophomore from Haddonfield, N.J., who has a best of 1:55.47 in the 200 backstroke and wants to get under or closer to the NCAA “A” qualifying standard of 1:53.37.
• Sophomore Shannon Draves, an NCAA qualifier as a freshman, will be seeking a return trip to nationals by way of the 200 butterfly. Ohio State’s school record holder in the 200 fly (1:57.33 in 2010) is from Gilbertsville, Pa., and has a 2011 best of 1:57.80. The NCAA “A” standard is 1:54.95.
• Sophomore Darcy Fishback, from Upper Arlington, Ohio, will also swim the 200 butterfly on Sunday. She has a 2011 best of 1:58.11.
• Kelsey Moran set the Ohio State 100 backstroke record last year as a freshman and broke it as a sophomore last week at the Big Ten championships when she went 53.21. Her “A” qualifying target in the event is 52.55.
• And sophomore Angela Severn, from Harleysville, Pa., will seek to go faster in two events where she already holds Ohio State records: the 200 and 400 individual medleys. Last week she set the 200 record by becoming the first Buckeye ever to go below 2:00.00 – and she did it twice – with a 1:58.54 time (NCAA “A” standard is 1:56.13). And earlier this year she broke the oldest record on the books with a 4:14.26 time in the 400 IM, breaking NCAA champion Janelle Bosse’s 1987 mark of 4:14.63.

There will be additional swims by other Buckeyes on Sunday, but four who won’t swim are seniors Samantha Cheverton (Lachine, Quebec) and Anita Beck (Cincinnati, Ohio), sophomore Megan Detro (Carmel, Ind.) and freshman Alex Norris (Cincinnati, Ohio). These four have qualified for the NCAA championships as part of two relays – the 400 freestyle relay and the 800 freestyle relay – that third-year coach Bill Dorenkott is confident will get pulled into the NCAA field.

The four scoffed at the school record in the 800 free relay last weekend at Big Tens, smashing the one-year-old mark by nearly seven seconds to finish second in a time of 7:02.64. The time, the fourth-fastest in the country, was approximately one-half second from the NCAA “A” standard of 7:02.07. Beck led off with Cheverton, Detro and Norris following.  

And then they closed out the finest Big Ten championships in 17 years for Ohio State – the team finished third – by demolishing the school 400 free relay record with a time of 3:16.10 that took over four seconds off the old mark. This relay, with Cheverton leading off and followed by Detro, Beck and Norris, also finished second and got to within about two strokes of the NCAA automatic qualifying standard of 3:14.93.

This weekend, the four NCAA qualifiers will have to be content to watch and cheer on their teammates as they try to blow by their NCAA “B” times and turn them into “A” times.  

###OhioStateBuckeyes.com###