Northwestern University Athletics
Women's Swimming Sending Six to NCAA Championships
3/8/2002 12:00:00 AM | Women's Swimming and Diving
March 8, 2002
EVANSTON, Ill. - Northwestern women's swimming will send six athletes to the NCAA Championships in Austin, Texas March 21-23, announced by the NCAA Championships Committee.
Carmen Cosgrove (Perth, Western Australia/Nebraska), Merritt Adams (Norcross, Ga./The Lovett School) and Rachel Johnson (Champaign, Ill./Centennial) had already received automatic berths to the championships during the season. They will be joined by Katie Simmons (Carmel, Ind./Carmel), Susie Sample (LaGrange, Ill./Lyons Township) and Vicky West (Redlands, Calif./Redlands), who all earned at-large bids. Adams has been named NU's captain of the NCAA squad.
Cosgrove swam an NCAA "A" time at Georgia in the 100 butterfly (54.21) to earn her spot at nationals. Cosgrove, who earned All-America honorable mention honors last year at Nebraska, will swim the 100 and 200 fly. Her top time in the 200 fly this season is 2:01.30, which she swam at Big Tens.
Johnson will swim the 100 and 200 fly and the 200 IM. Earlier this year in Georgia, she swam an NCAA "A" time in the 200 fly (1:59.56). This is Johnson's second trip to the NCAAs. She received All-America honorable mention honors as a member of the 800 free relay team last season.
Adams won the Big Ten title in the 200 fly with the second-fastest time in school history (1:58.73) to propel her into the championships. This is the same road that led her to the NCAAs her sophomore year. Adams, a three-time All-American, is scheduled to swim both fly events and the 200 IM.
Sample will be making her third consecutive postseason appearance, swimming both backstroke events. Only a junior, she has already earned three All-America honors. Her top times in the 100 and 200 back this season are 56.52 and 1:59.31, respectively.
West will compete in the 500 and 1,650 freestyle events. She was named honorable mention All-America last season in the 1,650 and 800 free relay. West set the school record in the 1,650 (16.17.20) at last year's Big Ten Championships. Her best time this season in the 1,650 is 16:36.01 and 4:54.46 in the 500.
This will be Simmons first trip to the NCAA Championships. She will swim the 100 and 200 breaststroke. Her top times this year are 1:03.60 in the 100 breast and 2:15.12 in the 200 breast.
NU will also compete in all relay events. The lineup for those events will consist of the six swimmers and will be announced at a later date.
Results following each race can be found at www.TexasSports.com.
