Tartans Start UAA Championships with Record Setting Day

(CHICAGO, Ill.) - The Carnegie Mellon University women's swimming and diving team began competition at the University Athletic Association Championships on Thursday, February 14 breaking two school records while nine swimmers qualified for the finals sessions. The meet is being hosted by the University of Chicago and the Tartans are currently in fifth place after four events.

The 400-yard medley relay team of freshman Kira Singhaus (Cherry Hill, N.J./herry Hill West), junior Tatiana Duchak (Centreville, Va./Mercersburg Academy), junior Soleil Phan (Irvine, Calif./Beckman) and senior Breanna Stillo (West Caldwell, N.J./James Caldwell) set a new school record and met last year's NCAA selection time while finishing second in a time of 3:52.62.

Earlier in the meet, Stillo broke her own school record in the 50-yard freestyle during the preliminaries as she qualified second in 23.87 seconds. The time also provisionally qualified her for the NCAA Championships in March. She finished the finals heat in sixth place in a time of 24.02.

Also swimming in the 50-yard freestyle finals was freshmen Elissa Maercklein (Whitefish Bay, Wis./Whitefish Bay) and Felicia Wang (Mission Viejo, Calif./Capistrano Valley). The pair finished second and seventh in the C-final in as Maercklein recorded her season-best time of 24.89 and Wang touched in 25.42, .20 off from her season-best preliminary time.

Phan earned an individual second-place finish in the 200-yard IM in a season-best time of 2:06.31, meeting last season's NCAA selection time.

Sophomore Kelley Sheehan (Poway, Calif./Poway) also provisionally qualified for the NCAA Championships with a 2:07.57 time in the 200-yard IM preliminaries. She finished sixth in the B-final with a time of 2:08.57. Senior Price Kinney (Greenville, S.C./J.L. Mann Academy) swam a season-best time (2:11.55) in the same event in the preliminaries and finished eighth in the B-final in 2:12.26 to earn 11 points for the team while sophomore Wendy Liu (Bridgewater, N.J./Bridgewater-Raritan) was fifth in the C-final in a career-best time of 2:11.78.

Junior Megan Garvey (West Chester, Pa./Villa Maria Academy) was the top finisher for the Tartans in the 500-yard freestyle as she touched second in the B-final in a season-best time of 5:02.87 which also provisionally qualified her for the NCAA Championships. Sophomore Kaeli Halbersleben (Maineville, Ohio/Kings) swam to a first-place finish in the C-final in a season-best 5:06.94.

The 200-yard freestyle relay finished sixth in a season-best time of 1:38.09 to pick up 48 points.

First year divers Andie Azofeifa (Castle Rock, Colo./Douglas County) and Amanda Savidge (Gettysburg, Pa./Bermudian Springs) had a good showing as Azofeifa tallied 289.65 points and Savidge earned 220.25 points. Both earned points for the Tartans despite not making it to the finals dive session.

Competition continues on Friday with the 200-yard medley relay, 400-yard IM, 100-yard butterfly, 200-yard freestyle, 100-yard breaststroe, 100-yard backstroke and 800-yard freestyle relay.