FSC Kicks off DII Swimming & Diving Championship with Two National Titles
 FSC’s Alli Crenshaw (Photo by Wayne Koehler, property of FSC) |
Florida Southern kicked off Wednesday's opening day of the 2013 NCAA DII Swimming & Diving Championships with a pair of national title performances.
In her debut at the national meet, freshman Alli Crenshaw took the title in the 1,000 freestyle. Later in the evening, the Moccasin men's 200 medley relay team also took the top spot on the podium.
Crenshaw was the very first individual winner at the 2013 championship, taking the title in a school-record time of 9:57.29. She joins former Moccasin Mary O’Sullivan as individual national champs from Florida Southern.
With the 1,000-yard freestyle split into a morning and evening session, Crenshaw and the rest of the field were chasing an earlier winning time of 10 minutes even by Tampa’s Heather Glenday, the 2012 national runner-up. It was a tight race too, as two swimmers from West Chester were chasing Crenshaw the entire way, and all three of them bettered Glenday’s earlier time. Crenshaw touched the pad first to finish 2.29 seconds ahead of Lauren Carastro. UT's Glenday finished fourth.
Ironically, the Moccasins' 200 medley relay squad was not among the nine invited teams at the meet, but the group assembled in Birmingham ended up beating all of those who were. With senior Jeb Halfacre swimming the leadoff leg, junior Robbie Swan on the anchor, and senior Miguel Ferreira and sophomore Allan Gutierrez in between, the Mocs broke the previous national record by .04 seconds. Their time of 1:27.21 was also a school record by more than 1.5 seconds, bettering the time they had at last year’s national finals when they placed tenth.
Nova Southeastern's Oskar Nordstrand also got the meet off to a solid start. Nordstrand swam to a fourth-place finish in the men's 1,000 freestyle with a time of 9:13.71.
With one day in the books, the Southern men are second with 89 points, 20 points behind perennial champion Drury. The FSC women are seventh, leading the SSC contingent with 49 points.
Action continues Thursday in Birmingham. Live results and live video are available.
