Swimmers head to NCAA Championhips

FAYETTEVILLE – Three members of the Arkansas swimming and diving team will travel to West Lafayette, Ind., this week for the NCAA Swimming and Diving Championships at the Boilermaker Aquatic Center on the Purdue University campus.

Seniors Yi-Ting Siow and Leah Pierce, along with junior Jamie Marks, will represent the Razorbacks at this year’s championships.

All three swimmers came away from last year’s NCAA Championships with All-America and look to repeat their performances from a year ago. As a team in 2009, the Razorbacks finished 27th.

Siow will compete in the 200-yard and 400y individual medley events along with the 200y breaststroke event. Pierce joins Siow in the 200y breaststroke while Marks competes in the 1,650y freestyle.

Siow returns to the pool after defending her conference title in the 200y breaststroke. Siow became the first Razorback swimmer to win back-to-back Southeastern Conference titles, touching in at 2 minutes, 9.23 seconds. The Malaysian native became the fourth SEC swimmer to win back-to-back title in the 200y breaststroke since 1981. At the national championships in 2009, Siow earned All-America honors with a fourth-place finish in the event in Arkansas-school record time of 2:08.41. Her fourth-place finish was the highest individual finish for a Razorback at an NCAA meet.

Pierce qualified for NCAAs at the SEC championships with a time of 2:11.75 in the 200y breaststroke. The senior finished fourth in the event at the conference meet. Last year, Pierce finished 16th with a career-best time in the event.

Marks returns to NCAAs in the same event where she earned All-America honors in 2009. The junior set an Arkansas school record last year, touching in at 16:08.42. Marks recently set a new school record in the 1,650y freestyle with a time of 16:08.40 as she finished fourth.

Competition begins Thursday and runs through Saturday. Preliminaries are scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. CDT with finals set at 6 p.m. CDT.