TCU Swimming & Diving: Three Qualify for NCAA Championships
For the first time since 2014, TCU will be represented at the NCAA Swimming and Diving Championships. Three team members qualified to advance to the championships either during qualifying rounds last week or by times set earlier in the season.
The men's NCAA Championship will be held March 23-25 in Atlanta. Janis Silins, David Ekdahl, and Alec Hubbard will be representing the Horned Frogs. The last Frog to participate in the NCAA Championship was Cooper Robinson, who swam the 200 backstroke in 2014.
Silins, a junior from Latvia, will make his first appearance in the NCAA Championships. He will be swimming the 100 breaststroke. He qualified for the championships with a personal-best time of 52.11 that he set at the Art Adamson Invitational in College Station last November. He is currently the school-record holder in both the 100 breaststroke (52.11) and the 200 breaststroke (1:54.05).
Ekdahl, a freshman from Sweden, and Hubbard, a freshman from Charlotte, NC, have both had incredible an inaugural year on the diving boards. Ekdahl placed sixth on 1-meter at the NCAA Zone D Diving Championships with a score of 706.80. With his true qualification on 1-meter, Ekdahl will also compete on 3-meter after he finished ninth overall with a score of 725.80..
He currently owns both school records on 1-meter (388.50) and 3-meter (418.80). This season, he was a three-time Big 12 Diver of the Week (October 6, November 3, February 2) and earned Newcomer of the Week (October 6) as well.
Hubbard qualified on platform behind an eighth-place finish at the NCAA Zone D Diving Championships with a score of 640.55. He has had a stellar season on platform as he currently holds the school record with a score of 377.03.
Ekdahl and Hubbard are only the third and fourth Horned Frogs divers to make it to the NCAA championships.
Not to be outdone by these three, other members of the team participated in the National National Invitational Championships. Both the TCU men's and women's teams had top ten finishes after the three day event held last weekend in Elkhart, Indiana. The men's team finished third with 661 points. The women's team finished seventh with 408.5 points.
Highlights of the three day event include:
- Geremia Freri won the men's 500 freestyle (4:18.63, a meet record)
- Freri won the men's 400 IM (3:48.17)
- Jadon Wuilliez won the men's 100 breaststroke (52.68)
- Piotr Sadlowski won the men's 50 butterfly (21.30)
- Raphael Paiva Da Lima placed second in the men's 50 breaststroke (24.27)
- Rylee Moore placed second in the women's 50 backstroke (24.89)
- Sadlowski placed second in the men's 100 butterfly (46.65)
- Wuilliez placed third in the men's 50 breastroke (24.28)
- Paiva, Noah Cumby, Wuilliez, and Jake Litchfield placed fourth in the men's 200 freestyle relay (1:19.01)
- Moore, Claire Chahbandour, Jeanne Dahmen, and Serena Gould placed fourth in the women's 400 medley relay (3:40.02, fourth fastest time in school history)
- Kade Knoch, Wuilliez, Sadlowski, and Cumby placed fourth in the men's 400 medley relay (3:12.41, sixth fastest time in school history)
- Freri placed fourth in the men's 1650 freestyle (15:26.61)
- Paiva, Milan Fabian, Luke DiMiceli, and Cumby placed fourth in the men's 400 freestyle relay (2:54.58)
Next up: Janis, Ekdahl, and Hubbard will compete at the Men's NCAA Championship March 23-26 in Atlanta.
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