The Kentucky swimming and diving team opened up the NCAA Women’s Swimming and Diving Championship in record-breaking fashion, finishing sixth overall in the 800-yard freestyle relay with a school record time of 6:57.51 to earn All-America First Team status for the first time in program history.
The Kentucky lineup of Ali Galyer, Asia Seidt, Danielle Galyer and Geena Freriks swam the relay in 6:57.51, breaking the previous school record of 6:59.33 the four set last month at the Southeastern Conference championships to win silver in the event.
“Really proud of them for finishing top eight. That was our goal from the beginning of the year, so mission accomplished,” said head coach Lars Jorgensen. “They fought hard. It’s really difficult being in lane eight when you’re 25 (yards) behind Stanford, but they didn’t give up. All four of them were awesome. So proud of them.”
With the sixth-place finish today, the Wildcats are already on their way to surpassing last year’s NCAA score as the performance gave Kentucky 26 points. At the 2016 NCAA Championships, the Kentucky women scored 40 points overall to finish 22nd.
Kentucky had earned All-American honorable mention the past two seasons, but Wednesday’s performance marked the first time UK had finished in the top eight to earn All-America First Team.
“Any time we’re top eight in the country it’s a great start. It couldn’t have been much better,” said Jorgensen. “Tomorrow is a big day, so hopefully continue to get better. That’s always one of our goals is to get better every session. Tomorrow morning will be huge.”
The 2017 NCAA Championships will continue Thursday with the 500 free, 200 IM, 50 free and 1-meter diving prelims starting at 10 a.m. ET, and finals beginning at 6 p.m. in the same events with the addition of the 200 free relay and 400 medley relay.
For the latest on the Kentucky swimming and diving program, follow @UKSwimDive on Twitter, on Facebook at Facebook.com/UKSwimDive, and on the web at UKathletics.com.
‑ GO CATS –
For more information contact:
Karlie Kinneer