ATLANTA, Ga. – The Texas A&M women’s swimming and diving team matched its program-best fourth-place finish for a fourth straight year at the 2016 NCAA Championships, which concluded on Saturday at Georgia Tech’s McAuley Aquatic Center.
Texas A&M surpassed the 300-point plateau for the third time in the past four years while piling up 309 points to grab the NCAA fourth-place trophy behind Georgia (414 points), Stanford (395) and California (358). Texas A&M has placed fourth at the national meet in 2008 and 2013-16. Rounding out the top 10 team finishers were Virginia (264), USC (244.5), Indiana (228), Louisville (220), NC State (155) and Michigan (150). It was also the 10th straight year for the Aggies to finish in the top 10 at the NCAA Championships.
“We had some great swims,” Bultman said. “We’d love to be higher than fourth, but fourth brings home a trophy and there are three great teams in front of us…and we weren’t that far behind. We had some big swims and got some diving points, which was awesome. We were seeded to finish sixth coming into the meet so to be a solid fourth was really good. We broke a bunch of school records and came close in some others so that’s always exciting too.”
The Aggies closed the meet with a pair of school record performances in the final race of the night – the 400-yard freestyle relay. The foursome of Béryl Gastaldello, sophomore Kristin Malone, freshman Claire Rasmus and juniorSarah Gibson started fast and got home in 3:11.91, which broke the old school record by over a second. Gastaldello got the Aggies out to a fast start with 47.19 opening leg, which also broke the Aggies’ school record in the 100 free. The third place finish matched the Aggies’ highest finish in the race at the NCAA meet (also achieved by the 2008 Aggies).
“That is what we wanted to do – set two school records,” Bultman said. “They really stepped up. They were seeded 12th coming into the meet, and to qualify in the top eight and finish third out of lane one was really special. That record had been around for a while and we had been close, so it’s nice to finally knock the stuffing out of it. That was fun to see.”
Sophomore Lisa Bratton opened the Aggies’ evening session with fourth-place finish in the 200-yard backstroke in a time of 1:50.80. Bratton grabbed the eighth and final qualifying spot in the A final in the morning prelims, but improved three spots in the evening session. It was Bratton’s third appearance in an individual Championship final of the meet, which had only been accomplished by two other Aggies in program history.
Gastaldello continued the Aggies’ fast start to the meet with a fourth-place finish in the 100-yard freestyle in a then-lifetime best time of 47.38, which was just .03 of a second off of Triin Aljand’s old school standard of 47.35 from the 2008 Art Adamson Invitational. It was the highest finish by an Aggie in the 100 free at the NCAA Championships since Julia Wilkinson won the race at the 2010 meet, which was the first-ever NCAA title in program history.
The Aggies racked up valuable points in the 200 breaststroke with a pair of swimmers in the A final. The sophomore pair of Bethany Galat and Esther Gonzalez Medina combined to score 26 points with Galat grabbing fifth place with a lifetime-best time of 2:07.18 and Gonzalez finishing seventh in 2:08.49. In the morning prelims, Gonzalez flew to a lifetime best of 2:07.93, which moved her to No. 5 on A&M’s all-time top 10 list.
Gibson continued her spectacular NCAA meet by tying for fifth place in the 200-yard butterfly in a time of 1:53.55. Gibson earned All-America honors in all three of her individual races and swam on four top 16 relays.
Earlier in the day, freshman diver Alais Kalonji contributed six points after finishing third in the consolation final (11th overall) of the platform dive with 255.40 points.
Story courtesy of Texas A&M Athletics