March 19, 2008

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Members of the No. 14 SMU women's swimming and diving team will be competing at the 27th annual NCAA Division I Swimming and Diving Championships Thursday, March 20 through Saturday, March 22. The Mustangs will look to improve on last year's 14th-place finish.

Representing SMU will be Jennifer Basel, Candace Blackman, Jennifer Blackman, Devon Callaghan, Anja Carman, Audra Egenolf, Petra Klosova, Sascha Van den Branden and Elzanne Werth. All eight swimmers qualified for the meet by swimming NCAA automatic qualifying times in individual or relay events. Egenolf, SMU's lone diver, qualified for the meet last weekend at the Zone D Diving Championships in Houston.

This year's meet looks to be one of the fastest meets in history, as only 10 provisional `B' cuts were invited to compete.

The Mustangs will enjoy some favorable seeding, as Werth is seeded 16th in a field of 32 for the 100 fly, J. Blackman is seeded eighth in a field of 30 for the 200 free and Carman is seeded sixth in a field of 28 for the 100 back, with Klosova seeded 13th in the same event.

In addition, the 800 free relay is the fifth-fastest in a field of 13 and Carman is seeded second in the 200 back, just a second and a half behind the first seed. In the 100 free, Klosova is seeded 13th and J. Blackman is seeded 17th in a field of 36. The Mustangs will also look to score in the 400 free relay, an event in which they're seeded 10th of 15.

The Mustangs kick off the meet with trials Thursday morning at 10am, with finals slated to begin at 6pm. Live stats and scoring can be found here. Complete meet recaps and results will be available on SMUMustangs.com following each day's competition.