Swimming and Diving Sending 11 to NCAA Championships
3/15/2006 12:00:00 AM | Swimming & Diving
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| Head Coach Eric McIlquham |
The Alabama Swimming and Diving teams qualified 11 athletes to this year’s NCAA Championships.
Crimson Tide head coach Eric McIlquham had two women and nine men make the cut for the championships, including defending NCAA 200 Breaststroke Champion Vlad Polyakov.
Senior All-Americans Kathryn Hallquist and Crystal Rasmussen qualified for the women’s championships held this week in Athens, Ga. Hallquist, making her fourth trip to the national championships, will swim the 100 backstroke. Rasmussen, making her third NCAA appearance, will be competing off the one and three-meter boards.
Joining Polyakov at the men’s championships, held in Atlanta, Ga. next week, will be senior All-Americans Spiros Bitsakis and Darren Erasmus, junior All-Americans Aaron Ashworth and Apostolis Tsagkarakis along with sophomores Mike Jones and Ryan Latone and freshmen Mark Randall and Chris Perry.
Ashworth will be competing off the one and three-meter board as well as the platform. Bitsakis will compete as part of the Tide’s 200, 400 and 800 freestyle relays and the 400 medley relay. Erasmus will compete in the 50 and 100 freestyles, the 200 and 400 freestyle relays and the 200 medley relay. Jones will swim the 200 freestyle relay while Latone will compete on the 400 and 800 freestyle relays.
Perry will swim the backstroke leg on the Tide’s 200 and 400 medley relays. Polyakov will swim the 100 and 200 breaststrokes as well as the 200 and 400 medley relays.
Randall will spend the most time in the pool, swimming the 500 and 1650 freestyles as well as a leg on the Tide’s 800 freestyle relay. And while Randall will swim the farthest, Tsagkarakis will be the busiest, swimming the 50 and 100 freestyles as well as the 200, 400 and 800 freestyle relays and the 200 and 400 medley relays, giving him seven events in all.
