(Portions of this story were taken from the Centre College, Colorado College and DePauw University websites)
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. - The Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference had four student-athletes earn all-America honors after the final day of competition at the 2011 NCAA Division III Swimming & Diving Championships at the Jones Aquatic Center on the campus of the University of Tennessee. Official Men's Site | Official Women's Site
DePauw junior Catie Baker earned honorable mention all-America honors after finishing ninth in the 200-yard breaststroke Saturday evening. Baker broke her own school record by finishing in 2:18.99. She also was ninth in the prelims in 2:20.32. (Interview)
Centre freshman Clark Weber had a strong showing in the 1650-yard freestyle and junior teammate Colleen Maggard performed well in the 200-yard backstroke.
Weber completed the 1650-yard free in a time of 17:16.10 to finish in 11th-place, earning honorable mention all-America honors. (Interview)
Maggard had a 13th-place finish in the 200-yard backstroke after posting a time of 2:02.73, setting a new school and SCAC record, which she had previously set at the SCAC Championships in February with a time of 2:03.54. She received honorable mention all-America honors for her performance. (Interview)
On the men's side Jordan DeGayner broke the Colorado College record in the 100-yard freestyle twice on Saturday morning and concluded the meet with a fifth-place finish in the consolation finals later that night in a time of 45.32 earning him honorable mention all-America honors. (Interview)
Other highlights from the final day of competition include Sewanee sophomore Phillip Link who just missed qualifying for all-America honors posting a 200-yard breaststroke time of 2:05.74 finishing 17th nationally.
DePauw's 400-yard freestyle relay of John Montgomery, Joe Hessburg, Jack Burgeson and Josh Baugh finished 21st with a time of 3:07.58 after entering with the 23rd fastest time.
For the meet, SCAC student-athletes collected 13 individual all-America honors and one relay team received all-America recognition.
The Colorado College men finished the NCAA Championships in 29th-place with 19 points while the DePauw men finished in 31st-place with 17 points. On the women's side, Trinity finished in a tie for 17th-place with 55 points while DePauw tied for 31st-place with 20 points. Southwestern finished in a tie for 41st-place with 12 points and Centre finished in a tie for 44th-place with 11 points.
Russell Kramer, SCAC Director of Communications and New Media, is on site covering all the action at the 2011 NCAA Division III Men's and Women's Swimming Championships. He caught up with several of Saturday's participants from the SCAC, as well as some of the conference's coaches, to get their thoughts following the events. Those interviews are linked below:
Catie Baker, DePauw (Listen)
Jordan Degayner, Colorado College (Listen)
Colleen Maggard, Centre (Listen)
Clark Weber, Centre (Listen)
Mary Bretscher, DePauw women's head coach (Listen)
Dean Brownley, Centre men's and women's coach (Listen)
Anne Goodman James, Colorado College men's and women's coach (Listen)
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