Lady'Backs take sixth at Ohio State

COLUMBUS, OHIO – The University of Arkansas swimming and diving team took sixth place at the Ohio State Invitational this weekend. The Lady Razorbacks finished with 373.5 points just one point behind Denver (374.5). South Carolina took the top spot with 793 points followed by Ohio State with 779, Utah with 679 and Iowa with 393. “It was a good meet with a lot of great swims,” said head coach Jeff Poppell. “Over the course of the three days we had numerous season-best and personal-best times.” One of those personal bests, and Arkansas’ top finish of the day, came in the 200 backstroke as senior Mariann Fulop touched in third with a 2:01.51. “The highlight of today was probably Mariann dropping another two seconds off of her best time in the 200 back and just missing the NCAA B qualifying standard,” said Poppell. Junior Tifanie Silver also turned in a career-best time of 2:11.01 in the 200 back, good enough for 17th. Arkansas earned a good chunk of its points in the relays and today was no exception as the team of Fulop, sophomore Summer Jackson, junior Emily Gregory and senior Kristen Thibodeaux placed fourth and turned in a season best 3:30.12 in the 400 freestyle relay. In the 100 free, Jackson took ninth with a season-best time of 52.14. In the 200 breaststroke, junior Katie McGraw and sophomore Elizabeth Engs finished 16th and 17th, respectively. McGraw posted a 2:28.21 in the preliminaries, her best time this season. Gregory took fifth in the 200 butterfly with a 2:04.75. She was followed by Thibodeaux who touched 11th with a personal record of 2:06.07. Freshman Allison Chinn continues to improve her times, turning in a personal record in the prelims of the event. In the platform diving event, sophomores Madison Palmer and Kellyn Williams finished 6th and 9th, respectively. For more information about Arkansas swimming and diving, log on to LADYBACKS.COM.