Sun Devil Women Show Out On Day One Of NCAA Championships

(Photo: Casey McNulty/Sun Devil Athletics)

During day one of the NCAA Championships, Arizona State women’s swim and dive channeled force and resilience to begin the battle for success. The Sun Devils established a strong tone throughout the regular season, but they needed to refine their prowess to defeat the strongest competitors in the nation.

Ready to perform on the grandest stage, the Sun Devil women made a splash during their NCAA Championship debut. Luckily for ASU, the first event of the competition was arguably the Devils’ strongest, the 200-yard medley relay. This season, the quartet of sophomore Miriam Sheehan, senior Iza Adame, freshman Julia Ullmann and graduate student Caroline Bentz have broken the school record in the event five times.

Sheehan led off the race and kept it close against the nation’s best with a backstroke split of 23.92 seconds. As the crowd roared, Adame’s focus and intensity didn’t waver, and her 26.65 breaststroke leg kept the Devils in contention for the win. However, the entire momentum of the race shifted when Ullmann dove into the water, clocking a 22.71 butterfly split for the Devils. Ullmann’s waves rocked the water as she neared the wall, creating the first gap of the race for ASU. With a lead and the sole goal of victory, Bentz dove into the water, ready to anchor the relay for the final time this season. In familiar fashion, the graduate student plowed ahead of the competition and achieved an untouchable lead in the final seconds. As the commentators declared ASU the winner, the Devils touched with a final time of 1 minute and 34.54 seconds, narrowly beating their entry time by 1.09 seconds. They overpowered the experienced Texas A&M Aggies by nearly an entire second and achieved a podium finish with the eighth-best overall time in the event.

It was a different story for the Devils during the second and final event of the night, the 800-yard freestyle relay. Fifth-year Erin Milligan established strength early, keeping ASU among the competition with her 1:45.66 leg. Senior Charli Brown kept the momentum, swimming a steady 1:44.73 split as South Carolina and Texas A&M began building leads at the opposite end of the pool. Fifth-year Elli Straume quickly brought ASU up in the third leg in an attempt to catch South Carolina. As she neared the 600-yard mark, Straume managed to lessen South Carolina’s lead and touch in a time of 1:47.06. Ready to round it out for the Devils, sophomore Grace Lindberg anchored the race and capitalized on the slack Straume had picked up. However, despite maximizing spirit and strength, her split of 1:46.27 wasn’t enough to claim victory. The Devils’ final time of 7:03.72 beat their entry time by 0.52 seconds, but they earned 19th overall in the event.

Although they began the night with a bang, the Devils were not able to achieve a podium in both relays. Chasing the feeling of a top-eight finish, Arizona State will seek to continue its early success during the three remaining days of competition.