A total of 20 members of the UC San Diego men's and women's swim teams will be competing at the NCAA Division II National Championships in Grand Forks, North Dakota, next Wednesday through Saturday, March 12-15.
The Triton women are sending 14 swimmers while the men had six qualifiers for the National Meet.
Top hopefuls on the women's side are eight-time national champion Jennifer Watanabe, a senior co-captain out of Monterey Park, California, and double NCAA Division II record-holder Rosanna Delurgio, a sophomore from Santa Cruz, California. Watanabe will be looking to get back to the top of the medal stand in her final appearance at Nationals, after missing out on top honors a year ago. Watanabe holds seven individual school records and is a part of three school-record relays.
Delurgio set school, conference and Division II records in both the 100 and 200 Breaststroke at the recent Pacific Collegiate Swim Conference Championships in Long Beach, and will be out to get her first individual national title. She is another in a long line of strong UCSD breaststrokers. The Tritons had seven All-Americans out of the breaststroke events at last year's NCAA Meet, including Delurgio twice with fifth-place finishes in both the 100 and 200.
The remainder of UCSD's Nationals contingent consists of senior Samantha Wong (Free), juniors Denise Bogard (Breast/IM) and Carolyn Kwok (Free Sprints), sophomores Elaine Engel (Free), Heather Hearon (Free), Christine Hyjek (Fly, Free, IM), Katie Miller (Breast), Kimmie Rice (Back) and Frances Tran (Fly, Back), and freshmen Sarah Grant (Fly), Sophie Levy (Distance Free) and Louisa Salisbury (Breast).
The UCSD women as a team will be among the contenders in Grand Forks, looking for their first national title in school history after finishing fourth at the 2002 NCAA Meet in Orlando, Florida. Truman State (MO) won its second straight national title last year, with Drury (MO) as runner-up for the second year in a row. Both, along with meet host North Dakota and West Chester (PA), should be in the running this year. Another school that could surprise is UC Davis, which edged defending PCSC champion UC San Diego for its first-ever conference title in Long Beach. UCSD took home the silver trophy at Nationals on eight occasions while a member of the NCAA Division III.
The full list of men's qualifiers includes senior co-captain Dagart Allison (Distance Free), junior Robert Small (Breast), and sophomores Michael Baier (IM/Breast/200 Free), Brett Going (Breast), Brady Gosling (Free) and Matt Rogers (Free).
The UCSD men finished 13th at Nationals a year ago in Orlando. Three-time defending Division II National Champion Cal State Bakersfield is once again the favorite. The 'Runners have won 12 Division II crowns all-time. Drury should also contend. The Triton men finished as National Runners-Up in Division III seven times before moving up to Division
