Swimming, diving teams make NCAA splash By Lisa Vonnahme Staff Reporter Pine After a slow start at the NCAA Championships in Minneapolis, the Nebraska women's swimming and diving team ended its season March 21 with an 11th-place finish, while the men finished 18th in Auburn, Ala., March 28. The women's team had a lot of expectations going into the meet, including a top-five finish, NU Coach Cal Bentz said. But the Cornhuskers were unable to meet all of their goals. The championship meet was highlighted with eight Cornhusker All-Americans, a runner-up finish in the 800-yard freestyle relay, finalist medals in three events and nine medals in consolation event finals. NU's 800-yard freestyle relay squad of Anna Windsor, Helene Muller, Therese Alshammar and Shandra Johnson just missed a national championship by one tenth of a second. Nebraska finished in a Big 12 Conference and school record of 7 minutes, 10.89 seconds, but Stanford edged the Huskers to win the title with a time of 7:10.79. "That relay was a defining moment," Bentz said. "We really needed that spark." Eight Huskers - Windsor, Muller, Alshammar, Johnson, Beth Karaica, Destiny Lauren, Lenka Manhalova and Terrie Miller - earned All-America honors at the meet. With two freshmen, eight sophomores and a junior making up the 1998 qualifying list, the women's team has high hopes for next year. "We've got a lot of young athletes that are going to mature and be back here next year," Bentz said. "With the field getting as fast as it is, we need to focus more on saving some energy from this meet instead of doing everything it takes to get here. We'll be back." The men's team will be back, too, after coming off its seventh-best showing in the team's 77-year history. The Huskers placed 18th at the NCAA Men's Championships in Auburn, Ala. "Given the tightness of this meet, we had a pretty good three days," Bentz said. "All in all, being 18th is a fine finish. With the depth of competition getting deeper every year, we have to be proud to be in the top 20." NU ended the three-day meet by scoring seven points on the final day of competition. The Huskers finished the meet with 80 points. Top-ranked Stanford won the meet title with 599 points. For the second straight year, NU's Adam Pine qualified for the consolation finals in the 100-yard freestyle. Pine finished with a time of 43.80, placing him 12th. Pine, along with Mark Bennett, David Foster and Alex Shleifman, placed 16th in the 400-yard freestyle relay. All of the Nebraska qualifiers - seven swimmers and two divers - earned All-America recognition.