Kansas takes on final day of the USA Winter Nationals
GREENSBORO, N.C. – Four Jayhawks concluded the USA Swimming Winter National Championship with high energy Saturday evening inside the Greensboro Aquatic Center to finish their long-course competitions.
Sophomore Lauryn Parrish kicked-off the exciting evening of final events when she tied for her career-best swim in the 200-meter backstroke (2:16.28) giving herself a bronze in the B Final.
Freshman Kate Steward had a lifetime-best and Olympic Trial cut swim to cap-off her evening in the 200-meter breaststroke B Final when she took home silver with a time of 2:32.70.
Junior Elizabeth Amato-Hanner earned a strong finish in the 200-meter backstroke as she dove into the C Final competition swimming a seventh-place time of 2:19.43.
Junior Haley Downey closes the competition on a strong note when she swam a 2:35.91 in the 200-meter breaststroke C Final where she dropped two seconds off of her previous time set in preliminaries earlier Saturday.
All seven Jayhawks participated in Saturday morning events prior to the evening’s finals and started the team off on the right foot.
To start the morning, Amato-Hanner and sophomore Parrish both dove into the 200-meter backstroke event posting times of 2:18.40 and 2:17.06, respectively.
Parrish swam herself into the 200-meter backstroke B final later Saturday evening while Amato-Hanner swam the event with a career-best swim.
“The 200 backstrokes really go things kicked off well,” head coach Clark Campbell said. “Elizabeth (Amato-Hanner) was our first one to go and she had over a three-second time drop, which is really cool. And Lauryn (Parrish) is really good in the long course 200-meter backstroke and she swam really close to what her best time is but she grabbed a lane for tonight.”
Junior Jenny Nusbaum closed her successful Nationals competition in the following 100-meter freestyle event in 28th place with a time of 57.83.
Steward won her 200-meter breaststroke heat and swam her way into her second B final of the competition with a career-best swim of 2:34.05.
Downey landed a spot in the 200-meter breaststroke C Final event Saturday evening finishing the preliminary race with a time of 2:37.90.
“We are really excited about tonight,” Campbell said. “All of our swims had things that we could do better from this morning and so we will see what kinds of things we can do tonight.”
Sophomore Manon Manning (29.75) and freshman Dewi Blose (30.58) both participated in the 50 backstroke time trial and swam career-best times.
“It was a really good morning and we are looking forward to ending the long course part of it and then tomorrow we have the short course 25-yard timed trial meet. They will have the opportunity to swim in the college pool format on Sunday.”
The short course time trials meet will begin Sunday morning at 8 a.m. (CT).
Fans can watch the final rounds via a live feed on USASwimming.org.
UP NEXT
The Jayhawks continue to swim in the short course time trails beginning Sunday morning Dec. 2 at 8 a.m. (CT).
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