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The NCAA National Division II Men's and Women's Swimming & Diving Championships was held in Buffalo, NY. Coaches Scott Lemley and Heather King accompanied freshman Kelly Becker to the competition. Kelly blogged to this website about her experiences at Nationals where she swam the 1000 yard freestyle and 100 and 200 yard butterflys

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Wednesday - March 14
1000 yard Free

Thursday - March 15
100 yard Butterfly

Friday - March 16
500 yard Freestyle
200 yard Butterfly

Kelly's Blog Page

Psych Sheet

Official results can be found at: www.ncaasports.com

Real Time results can be found at: www.starswimming.org/results/NCAAII/index.htm

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Flickenger Aquatic Center has been the host to many championship meets over the years including numerous Junior Nationals, the U.S. Open and the Phillips 66 National Swimming Championships. It's been the host of the last 10 Atlantic Coast 10 Conference Championships. The pool has a reputation for being exceedingly fast.

Kelly will be swimming the 1000 yd freestyle on Wednesday. The 1000 free is contested as a "timed final" meaning competitors will only swim this event once and that swim will be considered a "final" swim. All swim times are then rank-ordered fastest to slowest and final places are awarded. The fastest 8 swimmers entered will swum during the evening "finals" session while all other heats will be swum during the morning or "preliminary" session.

Kelly is currently seeded 22nd in the 1000 with a time she swam unrested earlier in the year (10:41.16). This probably means she'll be swimming in one of the early heats in the morning session. Last year it took a 10:25.18 to be an All-American in this event (8th place); to be an Honorable Mention All-American required a 10:33.78. The fastest swim out of the morning heats last year was a 10:13.02 by a sophomore from Truman who had entered the meet with a best time of 10:31.24.

Throughout the meet swimmers can selectively scratch from events which they don't wish to swim, either because they have too many events too close together or because they've qualified for more than four individual events, the meet limit. As each day ends, coaches submit scratches for swimmers who won't be swimming the next day's events. Each morning heat sheets are printed reflecting the scratches from the night before. Although Kelly is seeded in 22nd place right now, scratches for the 1000 can be given to the meet director up until Tuesday night so her seed place could change.

Kelly is currently seeded 30th in the 100 yard butterfly with a time of 58.72, swum at the PCSC Conference Championships last month on 3 days rest. Last year it took a 57.62 to make it to the big finals (top 8) and a 58.62 to make it to the consolation finals.

Entry times remain nearly constant from one year to the next. It's not uncommon for swimmers ranked out of the top 16 to qualify for finals. This is because most swimmers need to be completely tapered to qualify for NCAAs. This "major taper" is usually done at their conference championships. Re-tapering 3 or 4 weeks later is quite challenging for almost everyone. Kelly is fortunate in that she made her "A" cut early in the season so she hasn't tapered until this week. Not only is she tapered for the first time this season, Kelly also seems very at ease for her first ever national championships. The speed she's been showing in practice the last couple weeks leads me to believe she'll swim much faster than her seed time and I would give her an excellent chance to make it to finals Thursday.

Kelly will probably scratch from the 500 yard freestyle Thursday. She's currently seeded 14th. Some might wonder why she'd scratch from an event in which she's likely to be an All-American and to them she would say her only focus on Friday will be to swim a fast 200 fly. There's simply no room in her game plan for a second event that day. Head Coach, Scott Lemley, agrees completely.

Which brings us to her best event. Kelly is seeded 4th in the 200 yard butterfly with the 2:05.37 she swam in November at the Speedo Cup. She did this time (dropping over 2 seconds from her previous best) on 3 days rest. She duplicated that time in February at the Nanook's conference championships, again on 3 days rest. Last year it took a 2:08.01 to get into big finals and a 2:10.77 to make it to the consolation finals. The winning time last year was 2:02.63. Kelly has very high aspirations in this event. Stay tuned . . .

To keep things light and help Kelly stay relaxed on Tuesday, Scott, Heather and Kelly visited Niagara Falls, just 10 minutes from Buffalo. The volume of water cascading over the falls was truely impressive. So was the wind! Later that day all the coaches and swimmers attending NCAAs were treated to a banquet at the Hyatt Hotel. This wasn't just a spaghetti feed - this banquet was catered for the 500 participants complete with drinks, soup, salad, pasta, baked chicken and a lot of fancy desserts.

The banner our FANS (Friends of Nanook Swimming) bought us hangs proudly over our spot in the bleachers on deck.

3:00 pm (ET), Wednesday, March 14 - Kelly's 1000 yd freestyle swim is now in the books. She swam a 10:39.48, almost 2 seconds faster than her best. Since this is a "timed final" event, we'll need to wait until the fastest heat of the 1000 has swum this evening to know her final place. Out of the early heats Kelly's time currently ranks her 12th overall. If every swimmer in the final heat swims faster than she did during prelims, Kelly will end up in 20th place. This is a good start for her and, most importantly, the 1000 serves as an "icebreaker", meaning this: we know the first time a swimmer stands on the blocks at a national championships, they generally feel pretty nervous. Its almost a foregone conclusion that very first swim won't be great. That moment is now behind her and we think she'll be able to settle in for her best events - the 100 and 200 butterflys.

Though she swam well, the air was definitely stiffling in the pool this afternoon and Kelly found it hard to breathe during her 1000. She was already feeling the effects of allergies upon landing in Buffalo Sunday evening. Fortunately she's acclimating more and more each day to the air quality and humidity. In addition, her events Thursday and Friday are far more anaerobic than her 1000 so she won't be breathing nearly as much.

6:45 pm (ET), Wednesday, March 14 - the results are final: Kelly finished in 20th place out of 27 entries. Not bad for her first swim at her first NCAAs. Stay tuned for her 100 fly tomorrow.

12:45 pm (ET), Thursday, March 15 - Kelly swam the first of her two fly events this morning. She was seeded 30th in the shorter of the fly races and though we didn't know if she'd final from that position we were pretty sure she'd give us an indication of how strong her fly was feeling. Even though the resulting time doesn't show it, her fly is feeling great! I know this sounds like spin but I absolutely believe she's ready to swim the race of her life. This was definitely not it.

She warmed up well, looked great in her sprints (her fastest 25 fly was a 12.2 which is a lifetime best) and was on track to swim a time that would have jumped her up to the top 16 and into finals. She was out in an easy 28.00 and was sticking to the game plan of building into the first 25 and then starting to "bring it" the second 25. I believed I was watching a high 56 or low 57 with how smooth and fast she looked. Then disaster struck. Wanting to sneak a quick look at the second turn, Kelly lifted her head just high enough to see the wall but NOT high enough to catch any air when she breathed. Sucking in nothing but water, she hit the turn and completely lost her focus. By the time she coughed out the water and was swimming strongly again she had no rhythm left and ended up simply muscling the rest of her race. Though her 59.65 would have been a life time best just four months ago it wasn't even close to what she had trained for or was capable of swimming. It was a mistake on her part and the good thing is she knows it and readily acknowledged it when she got out of the water. That she wasn't able to shake off the effects of inhaling water and refocusing in time to salvage the swim is due to her relative youth and inexperience. I'm sure she learned a valuable lesson today.

It took a 57.30 to get into the big finals and a 58.31 to get into the consolation finals. Tomorrow is another day and the 200 fly is by far her best event. I know she's going to do everything in her power to swim to her potential.

2:00 pm (ET) Friday, March 16 - The prelims are over and Kelly is moving on. She qualified 10th which puts her into the consolation final. She felt great during the first 100 and then faded badly the second 100. I suspect the pressure of being the 4th fastest seed was at work. I'm still convinced she's ready to swim a very fast 200. Perhaps by being in the consolation final the pressure will be off and she'll swim more relaxed. Her 2:07.69 is more than two seconds slower than her conference time so I know she can swim much faster.

Seven girls swam 2:07s this morning and were within a half second of each other; the faster ones made it to the championship final while the slower ones ended up in the consolation final. That's the difference between being an All-American and an Honorable Mention All-American (similar to the difference between being a First Team All-American and Second Team All-American in basketball).

11:30 pm (ET), Friday, March 16 - Finals are over and so is our season. Kelly swam better this evening though did not move up from her 10th place qualifying position. We're ecstatic that she'll end the season being named an NCAA Honorable Mention All-American. She scored 7 points this weekend so ALASKA was on the scoreboard for the first time in 20 years! Scoring points at a National Championships was a long range goal for us and we achieved it in only the second year of our program.

Kelly swam well enough to come home with an All-American certificate for our wall AND she still has many, many swimming goals left to accomplish. As well as she swam this week, she knows the next time she gets on the blocks at the NCAAs she'll have all these experiences to draw upon and she'll get much closer to accomplishing the lofty goals she set out for herself this year.