INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. — The University of Notre Dame women’s swim team qualified a record number of individual participants for this year’s NCAA Women’s Swimming Championships to be held March 20-23 in Austin, Texas. The meet will feature eight individual Irish competitors and 12 total as all five relays qualified during the ACC Championships in late February.
“I am extremely proud that Notre Dame has a record eight individual qualifiers for the NCAA Championships,” Head Coach Mike Litzinger said. “It is a huge step from my first year, when we only had one athlete make the meet. We are also allowed to bring four relay only athletes, which bumps our total to 12, and we are still waiting on diving qualification (next week). Potentially we could have up to 14 athletes representing Notre Dame in Austin, Texas.”
Junior Abbie Dolan leads the team with two individual races, qualifying in both the 100 and 200 free events.
Two new faces will represent the team as well as Bayley Stewart and Luciana Thomas, both freshmen, posted career-best times in the 200 back and 200 fly, respectively, to earn a spot at the national meet.
The Irish will also be represented by three sophomore in Cailey Grunhard (100 fly), Carly Quast (100 back) and Lindsay Stone (1,650 free) while two women will swim their final individual race for the Blue and Gold in seniors Nikki Smith (200 fly) and Alice Treuth (200 back).
Lauren Heller, Kyra Sarazen, Meaghan O’Donnell and Skylar Fore will also be making the trip to Austin with the team as they are set to compete in the relays.
The Irish could potentially add two more names to the travel party depending on next week’s NCAA Diving Zone meet, March 14-16.
“Now the focus is on competing at the next level, and continuing to build on the legacy of this great program,” Litzinger concluded.
–ND–