Southern Illinoise University Athletics
MVC Swimming and Diving Championships: Day 1 Preliminaries
02/08/2007 | 12:00:00 | Swimming & Diving
Feb. 8, 2007
By Ryan Shaw
www.SIUSalukis.com
Carbondale, Ill. -In the Thursday morning preliminaries of the State Farm Missouri Valley Conference Swimming & Diving Championships, 14 Salukis advanced to the finals.
In the 500-yard freestyle, freshman Lisa Jaquez finished third with a time of 5:10.48. Illinois State's Jamie Haseman came in first with a time of 5:06.33 and Matana Wellman of Missouri State finished second with a time of 5:08.20.
Also qualifying in the 500 Free were Kasey Fernandez with an eighth-best 5:15.58, Karin Mullendore with a 13th-place 5:20.36, Keli Kramer with a 14th-best 5:20.77 and Jenna Helm with a 16th-place finish at 5:21.14.
Four Salukis qualified for the finals in the 200-yard individual medley. Abby Blank finished first in the preliminaries with a time of 2:08.65, a career-best time for the junior from Hayden, Idaho.
Danielle Quarry (2:10.45), Racheal Winius (2:13.73) and Liz Navistsky (2:20.32) also qualified for the event's finals. Winius' time was her career-best, beating out her old best time of 2:15.78 set at the Northwestern Invitational.
In the 50-yard freestyle, Julie Ju took second place with a time of 23.83, just shy of Missouri State's Jordan Hawkins' 23.50.
Therese Mattsson (23.88), Isabel Madeira (23.97), Tovah Gasparovich (24.52) and Gabriela Flores (25.59) will join Ju in the finals. Gasparovich's time is a new career best, replacing her old best 24.66.
Finals will begin tonight at 6 p.m. at the SIU REC Center.
