While most of the country experiences nerve-racking moments watching the NCAA basketball tournament, Laurin Williams’ nerve-racking experience consisted of swimming the 500-yard freestyle at the NCAA championships in Indianapolis today.
"I will be nervous when warming up," Williams said.
The junior, however, must have had her nerves under control going into the race, as she bettered her 62th seed by finishing in 51th in a time of 4:48.58 minutes.
Still, Williams’ time was off her season best time of 4:47.31 minutes, which she swam at the Mid-American Conference Championships and which led to her NCAA invitation.
“My second taper is never as good as the first one,” she said adding that she had already tapered before the conference meet.
The junior did not advance to any finals in her event and will not return to Indiana’s pool until late Saturday afternoon to take on the 1650-yard freestyle.
Last year she had already placed 23rd in the same event on the national stage.
“I want to do better this year,” she said.
The distance-standout is so far undefeated in the longest swimming event on the collegiate level this season and also the reigning 1650-yard freestyle MAC champion. Williams beat MAC senior of the year Briana Emig by nine seconds en route to the title and her time of 16:14.60 minutes missed her own program record by just 0.6 seconds.
“We didn’t put everything on the table for the MAC championships,” Ohio coach Greg Werner said. “We saved a little bit. My expectation is her to be the best she has ever been.”
