ELKHART, Ind. – The women's 200-yard freestyle relay became the firth Lindsey Wilson swimming relay, men's or women's, to claim a national championship on Thursday evening, capping off an electric second day at the NAIA Swimming and Diving National Championships.
In the exciting final event of the night, the Blue Raiders swam neck-and-neck with Keiser (Fla.) and eventually trailed the Seahawks by 0.14 seconds going into the final leg of the relay.
Maaike Broersma, who had won the 50-yard freestyle moments earlier, tracked down the Keiser swimmer in front of her and got back to the wall first for a school-record time of 1:33.83.
Broersma,
Kirsten de Goede,
Natascha Evreinoff, and
Natalia Gorska's historical performance is Lindsey Wilson's third recording-breaking relay of the week and the program's third top-three finish all-time in the 200-yard freestyle relay.
As mentioned previously, Broersma made some All-American magic of her own in the 50-yard sprint, dropping 0.23 seconds off her preliminary time to finish first at 23.16 seconds and earn her fifth career individual national title.
De Goede notched her first solo All-American accolade in the 200-yard individual medley as she placed second and broke her own school record in the process by hitting the wall at 2:02.92. She joins Jessica Macdonald as the program's only All-American honorees for the event.
Elsewhere,
Nathalie Medina became the first women's swimmer in school history to clinch All-American status in the 500-yard freestyle. The freshman wiped 0.81 seconds off her morning time and clocked in at 5:08.05 for seventh place.
The Blue Raiders did fall one spot in the team standings to third place but trail St. Thomas (Fla.) in second by only 17 points.
Day three of the national championships begin at 9 a.m. CST on Friday, March 7, featuring the 100-yard butterfly (Evreinoff and
Emma Verkuijl), 200-yard freestyle (de Goede), 100-yard breaststroke (
Sara Motyl), 100-yard backstroke (Broersma and Gorska), and the 400-yard medley relay.