Husky women look to rack up points at nationals

The University of Washington women’s swim team will close out its season at the NCAA championship swim meet next week. The event, held at McCorkle Aquatic Pavilion at Ohio State University, will take place from March 20-22.

The Huskies will send eight swimmers to the event, the most women ever sent from the University of Washington. The Huskies will compete in 12 individual events along with all five relays.

Freshman Ariana Kukors won two individual Pac-10 titles in the 200 and 400-meter individual medleys earlier this month at the Pac-10 meet. She may be the Huskies’ best chance at bringing home a national title in an individual event.

“This year the meet is super competitive and super fast,” coach Whitney Hite said. “Certainly Ariana has some opportunities in the 200 [individual medley] and 400 [individual medley] to win.”

Junior Kim Jasmer is another swimmer who may have an opportunity to make some noise at the national meet. Jasmer was the only Husky to qualify for nationals a year ago and single-handedly led the Huskies to a 35th-place finish nationally. Hite thinks she will be able to use that experience to her advantage.

“I think Kim might surprise some people at the NCAAs,” Hite said.

While it would certainly be a great accomplishment for the Huskies to bring home a title in any event, that is not necessarily the primary goal for the team or Hite.

“I think overall our general goal is to score as many points as possible,” Hite said. “This team has said all along that it’d be in the top 10, which is a pretty hefty goal.”

Along with Kukors and Jasmer, the relay teams will look to pull in the points for the Dawgs.

All five of the Husky relay teams broke school records at the Pac-10 meet, and all qualified for the NCAA championships.

The 800 freestyle relay team of Kukors, Jasmer, Petra Radovic and Erin Campbell finished third at the Pac-10 championships and has the eighth-fastest NCAA time this year. In the Pac-10 meet, the Huskies broke the previous school record by nearly 10 seconds, finishing in 7:06.92.

The 200 freestyle relay team of Jasmer, Campbell, Lindsey Sharp and Emilee Jennings finished a surprising fifth at the Pac-10 meet and received an automatic qualifier for the NCAA meet. They will look to improve upon their time of 1:30.91.

Other Huskies competing in the NCAA championships are Genevieve Patterson and Maggie Bever.

Patterson will swim the 100 and 200 breaststroke and the 200 and 400 medley, relays while Bever will swim the 100 butterfly and the 200 medley relay.

Hite continued to maintain that while qualifying eight girls for the NCAA championships is an amazing feat for the program, the Huskies are still going to get better.

“I think that at some point the goal is to be a top 10-program. The girls have worked awful hard. We’re going to get in there and do our best,” she said.

[Reach reporter Evan Riggs at sports@thedaily.washington.edu.]