Swimming sets sights on national championships

Coming off a third-place finish at the Appalachian Athletic Conference championships, the Milligan College swim team has been preparing for the NAIA Swimming & Diving National Championships which begins this week at the Allan Jones Aquatic Center in Knoxville, Tennessee. The 64th annual men's and the 40th annual women's championships will begin Wednesday, March 4 and run through Saturday, March 7.

March 3, 2020

MILLIGAN COLLEGE, Tenn. (March 2, 2020) – Coming off a third-place finish at the Appalachian Athletic Conference championships, the Milligan College swim team has been preparing for the NAIA Swimming & Diving National Championships which begins this week at the Allan Jones Aquatic Center in Knoxville, Tennessee. The 64th annual men's and the 40th annual women's championships will begin Wednesday, March 4 and run through Saturday, March 7.

Milligan will be taking 12 members to the national championships and head coach Spencer Scarth is confident in how his team has looked leading up to the championships.

"We've looked strong in the pool the last couple of days as taper slowly kicks in," he said. "It will be great for our graduating seniors to swim their last meet in Knoxville."

Matthew McFalls, Kaylee Propst and Anna Hathcock are the three seniors competing at the national championships from the Knoxville area. All three seniors have competed at the national championships every year they have been at Milligan. In individual events, McFalls will be competing in the 50 freestyle, 100 freestyle and 200 freestyle, Propst in the 200 backstroke and Hathcock in the 100 and 200 butterfly.

Junior Maggie Halloran, the AAC co-female swimmer of the year, will look to continue her success at the national level after earning two All-American nods at last season's national championships in the 100 and 200 backstroke. Halloran will compete again this year in the 100 and 200 backstroke, as well as the 500 freestyle. In the ACC championships, Halloran won three conference championships in the 1650 freestyle, 500 freestyle and 100 backstroke.

Four other members of the Milligan swim team will be returning to the national championships from last season. Junior Lindsey Grow will be returning after competing in four championship events in 2019. As an individual this year she will be competing in the 200 and 400 IM as well as the 100 breaststroke. Sophomore Logan Garzonio will compete this year in the 200 IM, 100 butterfly and 100 freestyle. Last year, Garzonio only competed individually in the 100 backstroke. Jarod Blazo will also be making another appearance at the national championships, competing individually again in the 200 backstroke, and Jordan Clark will be returning again to compete in the 100 butterfly.

Milligan will have four newcomers competing at the championships this year. Junior transfer Mitchell Martin, who has broken Milligan's school record in the 1000 freestyle (twice) and 1650 freestyle, will compete in the 500 freestyle and 1650 freestyle. Freshman Ben Hawkins, who has made an instant impact on the team's success, will be competing individually in the 500 freestyle and the 100 breaststroke. For the women sophomore Anna Backus will be making her national championships debut as a relay swimmer, and freshman Rachel Scheffer will be competing individually in the 100 butterfly and 100 backstroke.

Along with the individual events, Milligan will have relay teams competing for both women and men in the 200 freestyle, 400 freestyle, 800 freestyle, 200 medley and 400 medley.

"We're looking forward to ending our season on a high note," Scarth said. "Last year, the team finished 17th on the men's side and 15th on the women's side and we're expecting to finish higher this year."

The first day of the national championships will begin Wednesday at 11 a.m. Eastern Standard Time, with the 800 freestyle relay teams. Every day following will begin with prelims at 10 a.m. and finals beginning at 6 p.m. Live results for the events can be found here.

For the four-day event, the schedule for the Milligan swimmers is as follows:

Wednesday, March 4

800-yard freestyle relay

Thursday, March 5

200-yard freestyle relay

500-yard freestyle – Maggie Halloran | Ben Hawkins, Mitchell Martin

200-yard individual medley – Lindsey Grow | Logan Garzonio

50-yard freestyle – Matthew McFalls

400-yard medley relay

Friday, March 6

200-yard medley relay

400-yard individual medley – Lindsey Grow