Sophomore Elizabeth Beisel did not swim her personal best in the 400 IM at the NCAA Swimming and Diving Championships, but she nearly won a national title anyway.
Beisel finished the 400 IM in 3:59.57, which was good enough for third place. She was just one of three swimmers to swim a sub-four minute time.
Senior Teresa Crippen placed sixth in the 400 IM with a time of 4:04.83.
“Both Elizabeth and Teresa gave great efforts in the 400 IM,” coach Gregg Troy said. “It was a little short of what we think we can do, but there are no complaints.”
Beisel and Crippen were Florida’s two best individual performers on the second day of competition, but their efforts were far from over.
UF’s top two 400 IM racers also anchored the Gators 800 Free Relay team, which notched a time of 7:00.84 for sixth place.
Crippen swam the best leg with a 1:44.04 while Beisel was not far behind with a 1:44.68.
Junior Jamie Bohunicky posted the third-best time with a 1:45.14 while freshman Natasha Fung rounded out the relay with 1:46.98.
“We don’t have a lot of people here swimming for us – all of those girls were a little tired to come back and finish with that race,” Troy said. “We were in the hunt, but fell just a little bit short from what we thought we might go.”
Beisel and Crippen were instrumental in helping the Gators climb into 11th place with 99 points after the second day of competition.
Florida is just two points behind 10th-place Arizona State.
“We raced really well, much better today than yesterday,” Troy said. “We were a little quicker, just a little stronger in the morning, and while l am a little disappointed with some of the results, all the girls that swam tonight gave terrific efforts.”
“It’s always one of our goals to be as high as we can, swim as far as we can into the top-10,” Troy said. “We’ve been fortunate enough to not be out of the top-10 for the past few years, so we have our work cut out for us [Saturday].”
