Bowling Green State University Athletics
MAC Championships Come to BGSU
February 23, 2009 | Women's Swimming & Diving
Feb. 23, 2009
BOWLING GREEN, Ohio - BGSU and the swimming and diving Falcons will host the 2009 Mid-American Conference Women's Swimming and Diving Championships at Cooper Pool this week. The competition is set to begin Wednesday, Feb. 25 and end Saturday, Feb. 28.
Eight MAC schools (Akron, Ball State, Bowling Green, Buffalo, Eastern Michigan, Miami, Ohio and Toledo) will bring their best swimming and diving efforts in hopes of winning the annual championship.
Coming in to the weeks competition Miami leads the conference in wins with a season record of 6-1 (10-2 overall). Eastern Michigan (7-4 overall) and Toledo (6-5 overall) follow close behind each with conference records of 5-2. Ohio (9-3 overall) and Buffalo (8-3 overall), each going 4-3 in the conference are in fourth and fifth, respectively. Ohio reigned supreme at the 2008 MAC Championships, earning with the win their tenth MAC title. Akron is in sixth going 2-5 (6-6 overall), while BGSU (2-7 overall) and Ball State (2-7 overall) round out the conference, each with conference records of 1-6.
After a sixth place finish at last years Championships, the Orange and Brown are looking to have a strong end to the season.
In the last meet of her college career senior co-captain, Alisha Yee will look to perform her best of the season this coming week. In her career at BGSU, Yee has racked up three medals (two silvers and one bronze) and set four personal best times in the 100-yard backstroke, 200-yard backstroke, 200-yard IM and 100-yard butterfly. Yee also holds BGSU records in the 100-and-200-yard backstroke events and was awarded the honor of 2008 First-Team All-MAC.
Also showing great potential to excel at the MAC Championships is junior co-captain Meg Richardson who set BGSU's top record in the 50-yard freestyle at the OSU Invitational earlier this season. Richardson finished the sprint in 23.70, beating the previous record of 23.72 that has been held by Sheri Williams since 1988.
Freshman Vicky Yu is also looking to swim her best times of the season. Yu has had an outstanding season as a freshman, setting a record breaking time of 2:02.02 in the 200-yard butterfly, beating out the former record holders time of 2:03.25 that was held since 1986. Yu also has top-ten times in the 100-yard butterfly and the 400-yard IM.
The MAC competition is set to begin Wednesday with opening ceremonies beginning at 6:50 p.m. Wednesday's events will be the finals of the 200-yard medley relay and 800-yard free relay. Thursday and Friday preliminaries pick up at 11 a.m. with finals at 5 p.m.; Saturday preliminaries start at 11 a.m. with finals taking off at 3 p.m.
Admission per session will cost adults $6.00, seniors $4.00 and students $3.00. For an all-session pass, admission will be $25.00 for adults, $18.00 for seniors and $10.00 for students. Also available for purchase will be the 2008-2009 MAC Championship program for $3.00 as well as heat sheets for $1.00 a piece.
