University of Tennessee Athletics
LADY VOL SWIMMERS HAVE SUCCESS AT BULLDOG INVITATIONAL
March 02, 2002 | Women's Swimming & Diving
March 2, 2002
ATHENS, Ga.
Four University of Tennessee women's swimmers made the journey to Athens, Ga., in hopes of improving upon or reaching NCAA qualifying standards at the Bulldog Invitational at the University of Georgia on Saturday.
"We had a terrific day of swims today," Tennessee head coach Dan Colella said. "We had several lifetime bests today and we are pleased with all of the swims we had. We are looking forward to more fast times tomorrow."
The meet consisted of nine teams, including seven Southeastern Conference schools, with selected student-athletes trying to earn or better their NCAA qualifying marks. For each of the events, preliminaries were conducted in the morning and finals in the evening with time trials following the finals. Fields for each event consisted of anywhere from one to 16 competitors with each competing for time not placing.
Senior Monica Shannahan found the most success at the Gabrielsen Natatorium as she recorded the NCAA automatic qualifying time in the 200y butterfly to guarantee her a spot at the NCAA Women's Swimming and Diving Championships over March 21-23 in Austin, Texas. The San Diego native swam a time of 1:59.83 to exactly hit the 'A' cut time and become the first Lady Vol to automatically qualify for NCAAs this year as she was one of just two women to hit an 'A' cut on Saturday. Shannahan also has NCAA provisional times in the 200y breaststroke, 200y individual medley and 400y IM to give her a solid shot at multiple events at the national meet.
Shannahan was not the only one swimming well on Saturday as two other Lady Vols had lifetime-best performances. Junior Nicole Brannock clocked personal-best times of 2:07.16 in the 200y IM finals and 2:18.97 in the time trials of the 200y breaststroke. Freshman Jessica Blevins turned in the best 50y freestyle time of her career as she clocked a mark of 24.37 in the preliminaries in Athens.
Senior Valerie Conte, who had an outstanding performance at the SEC Championships last week, clocked a time of 2:00.98 in the time trials of the 200y backstroke. Conte's mark is an NCAA provisional time, but does not better her clocking of 2:00.60 from last week's SEC Championships. So far this season, Conte has 'B' cut times in three events including the 100y backstroke, 200y backstroke and the 200y IM.
The Lady Vols will be back in action on Sunday at the Bulldog Invitational with nine more events and time trials. Following Sunday's action, the Lady Vol divers will take to the water next for the NCAA Zone B Diving Championships in Lexington, Ky., over March 15-16. That meet and other regional meets will determine the diving competitors for the NCAA Championships.
