By Patrick Engel
The SMU women’s swimming and diving team won 12 events at the American Athletic Conference Championship in Greensboro, N.C., good for a first-place finish.
Senior Isabella Arcila won three individual and three team events to lead the Mustangs to their 16th conference title in the last 19 seasons. Arcila also set a school and AAC Championship record for the 50-yard freestyle, while sophomore Tara-Lynn Nicholas did the same in the 100-yard breaststroke.
The 12 events SMU won include: 50-yard freestyle (Arcila); 200-yard individual medley (Rachel Nicol); 200-yard breaststroke (Nicol); 200-yard backstroke (Arcila); 100-yard breaststroke (Nicholas); 100-yard backstroke (Arcila); 400-yard individual medley (Kirsty McLaughlin); 100-yard butterfly (Marne Erasmus); 400-yard medley relay (Anna Volchkov, Erica Donaldson, Adrienn Santa, Tiffany Sudarma); 400-yard freestyle relay (Nathalie Lindborg, Santa, Arcila, Erasmus); 200-yard medley relay (Arcila, Nicholas, Erasmus, Lindborg); and the 200-yard freestyle relay (Arcila, Nicholas, Erasmus, Lindborg).
SMU posted a team score of 797 in the six-team field, with Connecticut (619) and East Carolina (595.5) taking second and third. Mustangs’ Head Coach Steve Collins was named the women’s AAC Coach of the Year.
The next team meet for SMU is the NCAA Championships, which begin on March 19 and are held in Greensboro. The divers’ next meet is the NCAA zone diving qualification on March 9-11 in Iowa City, Iowa.
