Kentucky Women Readied for 2018 NCAA Championships
COLUMBUS, Ohio – After scoring the most points in program history at the national meet a season ago, the No. 12 Kentucky women’s swimming and diving team will look to continue climbing the ranks at the 2018 NCAA Championships, March 14-17, in Columbus, Ohio.
Hosted by Ohio State University and the Greater Columbus Sports Commission, the meet will kick off Wednesday evening at 6 p.m. ET inside the McCorkle Aquatic Pavilion.
“We’re looking forward to going to the national championships,” said Kentucky head coach Lars Jorgensen. “We love being here in Columbus in a pool that we’re familiar with and being close to home. I think we have a great group of women this week. Ultimately, we just want to get best times and score as many points as we can for the team.”
The Wildcats qualified 11 individual athletes for the meet, a one-person increase from last season’s NCAA roster. Since Jorgensen took over the program in 2013, Kentucky’s NCAA qualifiers total has increased each year.
Representing UK at the national meet will be seniors Bridgette Alexander and Morgan Belli; juniors Geena Freriks, Courtney Clark, Kathryn Painter and Paige Kelly; sophomores Asia Seidt, Ali Galyer and Madison Winstead; and freshmen Bailey Bonnett and Lauren Edelman.
Kentucky looks to improve upon last season’s 14th-place finish, having scored a program-record 106 points for the first top-15 team finish under Jorgensen.
Going off the official psych sheet, seven Wildcats are in individual scoring position across 10 individual entries as the top 16 finishers earn points toward the team total. Two of Kentucky’s three qualified relays also rank in the top 16 currently.
Kentucky is led by Seidt, who is seeded in the top six of each of her individual events. The sophomore is coming off two gold-medal performance at last month’s Southeastern Conference Championships where she swept the backstroke events. The Louisville, Ky., native is seeded fourth in the 200 back (1:49.65), sixth in the 100 back (50.86) and third in the 200 IM (1:53.04), having recorded NCAA automatic qualifying times in all three. Seidt’s best finish at last season’s NCAA Championships came in the 200 back, where she finished third overall with a school-record time of 1:49.63.
Also in scoring position in the 200 back are Seidt’s teammates Galyer and Alexander. After finishing eighth in the event last season, Galyer is seeded seventh this year with a time of 1:50.63 which earned her the bronze medal at the SEC Championships. Alexander has the 14th-fastest time in the nation in the event this year at 1:51.92.
After winning the SEC title in the 500 freestyle, Freriks enters the NCAA Championships with the eighth-fastest time in the nation at 4:37.20.
Two Wildcats rank inside the top 16 in the 100 breaststroke, led by sophomore Winstead who sits at the No. 13 spot with a time of 59.38 and followed closely by Bonnett at 59.48. Bonnett also comes in with the eighth-fastest time in the country in the 200 breast with a time of 2:07.17.
An All-America honorable mention selection in the event last season, Painter rounds out the top-16 seeds. She owns the No. 16 time in the 400 IM at 4:06.82.
Belli, Edelman and Kelly will be making their NCAA Championship debuts this week, while Clark makes her second appearance having qualified in her freshman campaign.
ESPNU will broadcast live the championship finals session Friday starting at 5 p.m. ET. The finals session on Saturday will be streamed live by ESPN3 starting at 6 p.m. The additional sessions can be streamed on the NCAA Swimming and Diving Championships microsite at www.ohiostatebuckeyes.com. Tape delayed coverage of the women’s championships will be broadcast on Sunday, March 25 at 4 p.m. on ESPNU.
For the latest on the Kentucky swimming and diving program, follow @UKSwimDive on Twitter, on Facebook at Facebook.com/UKSwimDive, and on the web at UKathletics.com.
