by Payton Miller–The men’s and women’s national swim championship kicks off this week. Qualifying swimmers from across the United States are in Columbus, Georgia to compete at the final meet of the season.
Eight men and six women from Morningside University make up the achieved qualifying times and will be competing this week.
The men’s national team is made up of freshmen Caden Morton, Sophomores Nash Perisho, Willy Pinnow, and Joe Ciriaco, juniors JR Albers, James Camp, and Caleb Thompson, and senior James Spicer.
Team captain Spicer will be competing at his final nationals this year with the Morningside Swim team. “These past four years have been amazing. I am not nervous for my last meet and I’m ready to go represent Morningside one last time,” he said.
On the women’s side, we have freshman Kirsten Verplanke, sophomores Mackenzie Campbell, Josie Dike, Grace Holzerland and Rachel Roose, and junior Makenna Laher.
This will be the first National Championship meet due to its cancelation last year. “It’s a new experience for anyone who’s a sophomore or freshman and it is also probably the most significant meet any of our swimmers will have ever been to,” Morningside head coach Bryan Farris said of the upcoming competition.
Three days of competition will be split into two sessions: preliminaries and finals. Each qualifying swimmer will have the chance to swim in the preliminary session, only the top two heats of swimmers will return that night for the chance to compete one last time. “This will be a very fast meet; we need to remain focused on our plan; not be intimidated and race the people we always swim with,” Farris said.
Championships kick off Thursday, March 3rd at 8 AM and conclude Saturday, March 5th. Tickets can be purchased on the NAIA website and a Live stream will be available throughout the competition for viewers who cannot attend in person.
Leave a Reply