The Virginia women's swimming and diving team heads to West Lafayette, Ind. today to compete in the 2010 NCAA Championship, seeking to improve upon last season's 12th-place finish. Virginia qualified a school-record 16 swimmers - the third-most in the nation after Arizona and Georgia - for the championship meet.
"We're thrilled to be here with so many Virginia athletes," coach Mark Bernardino said. "It's our hope that we can accomplish the goals that we established for ourselves early in the season, which was to bring as close as a complete team as possible to this meet and somehow manage to fight our way into the top 10."
The team will look to ride the momentum gained from winning its third consecutive ACC Championship, when it cruised to victory, tallying 877.5 points - 235 points more than second-place North Carolina.
The Cavaliers will be led by senior Mei Christensen and standout freshman Lauren Perdue, who both contributed heavily to Virginia's conference title. Christensen and Perdue earned top seeds for the 100 and 200 back and 200 free events, respectively.
Sophomore Lauren Smart and freshman Christine Olson also automatically qualified for the NCAA Championship through their 'A' times in the 100 back and 200 breast, respectively. All five Cavalier relay teams will compete at the national meet, as well.
"If we're able to put four or five relays into the top eight positions and get back to the finals at night, then I think we have a wonderful opportunity to score a lot of points and reach our goal of being a top-ten team at this championship meet," Bernardino said. "The top 10 teams have been entrenched for many, many years, and breaking into that group would be something very special for our program."
Although led by a core of strong individual performers, the team stressed that focusing on the lineup as a whole, rather than individual results, is the key to achieving success at the NCAAs.
"It's always the team that we have in mind when we step up on the blocks," senior Katherine McDonnell said. "That's something you come to learn through your four years here."
The program's best showing at the NCAAs came in 1988, when Virginia placed seventh at the championships. This season, with a group of veteran seniors at the helm, who have won three straight team ACC titles, the team will look to break through on the national stage for the first time in recent memory.
"This is a great indicator of where the program is headed," Bernardino said. "Virginia is one of the fastest rising women's programs in the nation, and we are looking for a record performance at the NCAA meet. We hope to compete for a national championship down the line, but in the short term, we are going to try to move into the top 10 and consistently and steadily move forward"
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