Seven APU swim and dive athletes competed in the 2018 NCAA Championships this past weekend and expressed gratitude for the experience
Five swimmers and two divers for Azusa Pacific competed at the 2018 NCAA Division II National Championships this past week in Greensboro, N.C. The event took place from March 14 -17 during which time APU earned ten team points, finishing 39th overall.
Senior swimmer Rosalee Santa Ana set a personal best during the 1650-meter freestyle with a time of 17:02.38, placing her 13th in the event.
However, prior to this final swim, Santa Ana competed in four other events. Her performance in the 500-meter freestyle and the 200-meter butterfly earned her a 25th and 23rd place, respectively, but were not good enough for her to compete in the final round of each event.
“The third day was kind of rough for me because I did not make it back in the finals for my 500-free and 200-fly, but I tried to move forward and focus on that last event, the mile, and just have fun,” Santa Ana said.
Her performance during the 1650-free event was exceptional and her reflections on it mirror her performance.
“I didn’t expect my mile was going to be that great. I just wanted to have fun and worship God in the water and it just came out perfect. It was a huge shock getting my last college personal best,” Santa Ana said. “Right when I finished and touched the wall, there were just tears flowing down my face because it was just a huge miracle, a huge surprise for me… It was totally God in that pool.”
Senior swimmer Tamara Miler also competed individually in freestyle events. Miler finished the 1000-freestyle in 10:24.14 (32nd place) and swam a time of 5:03.12 in the 500-freestyle event (35th place).
Santa Ana, senior Alyse Darnall and junior swimmers Elodie Poo Cheong and Abigail Wiet made up the Cougars four person team for the 800-meter freestyle relay. The relay team finished the swim with a time of 7:34.73 but was disqualified after an official review of the race for an early start on an exchange.
Darnall, who is APU’s swim team captain, found the disqualification to be more hilarious than upsetting.
“Honestly, I laughed when I heard we got disqualified. We waited almost an entire week to swim one race. I think it is hilarious that that was my last race,” Darnall said.
While relatively unbothered by the disqualification, Darnall was not thrilled with her personal performance in the relay.
“The disqualification did not affect how I viewed the race. I was really disappointed with how I swam,” Darnall said. “It was really hard for me to grapple with [my performance] and be okay with it, but everything happens for a reason and it is okay. It just kind of shows that your times aren’t everything in this sport.”
Since Santa Ana, Miler and Darnall are seniors, this Nationals performance was the final meet of their collegiate careers. Despite some of the disappointments, the athletes expressed immense gratitude for the experiences gained during their time competing and for their time at APU overall.
“I am just very thankful for another memory added to the books… I would not have asked for any other people to go and experience Nationals with as a team,” Santa Ana said. “I will always miss my Cougar family. They have made a huge impact on my life and helped me grow spiritually and athletically… It was fun living the NCAA dream for the last time.”
Freshman diver McKenna Webster attended Nationals for two dive events, the three-meter and the one-meter, as a first time competitor. During both of her events, she received honorable mention All-American honors.
“I was really nervous. I was super excited to get the opportunity to compete at Nationals, especially as a freshman and it was really great having teammates to go with that had already been,” Webster said.
Junior teammate Rachel Johns, who was at Nationals both this year and last year, helped prepare her for the event by explaining what she should expect and how each event would take place. This preparation helped her ease in to the atmosphere of such a high level competition.
Webster spoke about her performance in this new competition environment.
“I threw in some new dives that I have not competed [with yet] so I was really happy that they went well. Overall, I felt very consistent with my dives and they were really strong so I’m happy with that,” Webster said.
Webster finished 16th overall in the three-meter, scoring 390.70 points, and in the one-meter she finished 12th, scoring 394.40 points. The performance closed a strong season for Webster, who is already looking forward to next season and the possibility of returning to Nationals next year.
“The swimming and diving season is very long, and so being able to end the season on such a high note was really exciting and fun. It is such a hard push to get all the way there but you really see all of the hard work pay off,” Webster said.