13 Hoosiers head to NCAA women's Swimming Championships

Heading into the women’s NCAA Swimming and Diving Championships, which will be held from Thursday to Saturday in Auburn, Ala., IU Coach Ray Looze said this team is unlikely to win the team’s first-ever NCAA title.

With 11 swimmers competing in 12 events, including the 800-yard freestyle relay, plus two divers as well, Looze said that while this team is unlikely to win a national title, a long-standing goal is well within reach.

In the 2005, the Hoosiers finished ninth at the NCAA Championships. These athletes hope to break that feat.

“We have a chance to finish with our highest national ranking ever,” Looze said.  “Although our ultimate goals are to get to a national title, you have to build to get to that point, and have a nice, realistic, step-by-step to do that.”

Throughout the season, swimmers from IU have been working to achieve certain time standards so that they could qualify for the NCAA Championships.

As 11 swimmers have reached that goal, the Hoosiers will have ample opportunities to score points and improve on last season’s 15th-place finish.

Leading the way for the Hoosiers will be senior Margaux Farrell, who will be competing in four events: the 500-, 200- and 100-yard freestyles, and will be a part of the 800-yard freestyle relay team.

Not only will she have to swim at least a mile of competition at the NCAA Championships, but only one day after NCAA Championships end, Farrell and freshman Justine Ress, also competing at NCAA’s, will board a plane en route to Dunkerque, France.

There, they will compete in the French Olympic Trials, held this year from March 18-25.

“I trained myself to be used to this (trio) of meets in a row since I was a freshman, so that when I would do it my senior year, the year of the Olympics, I would be ready to handle the trip,” Farrell said. “So while I know it is going to be exhausting and mentally challenging, I have been getting myself ready for this for a long time now.”

Senior Allysa Vavra will also hope to get the Hoosiers’ second-ever NCAA swimming title. A school record holder in the 200-yard breaststroke, and 200- and 400-yard individual medley, Vavra will be a top-ten seed in each of those three events.

Having not won an NCAA title in her career, this will be Vavra’s last opportunity to achieve her goal.

“I'm not going into the meet thinking I will win an event; if it's meant to happen, it will,” Vavra said. “Right now it's more important to focus on myself and if I have the confidence, I am really capable of anything.”

With this being the final opportunity for swimmers like Farrell and Vavr, and seniors Brittany Strumbel and Nikki White to win their first NCAA title in their careers, all their hard work over the last four years will culminate in this final meet. Win or lose, Farrell knows that there is not much she can do, as she has put in her total effort.

“It would obviously be awesome to win a title at NCAAs whether it be relay or individual, but I’m not trying to focus so literally on the meet,” Farrell said. “I’m taking it one race at a time, one day at a time and giving it my all each time I step up on the block. So whatever the outcome is, I’ll be happy with it because I know there was nothing more I could have done.”