FAYETTEVILLE – In a span of five days, the Razorback swim team captured nine lifetime-best times and new school record at the Phillips 66 US Nationals in Irvine, California, August 6-10. As a team, Arkansas swim claimed 21st place in the overall standings.
Arkansas’ 4x200 long course freestyle relay team of juniors Anna Mayfield and Maddie Monroe, and seniors Rachel Stoehr and Lauren Jordan, reached the medal podium with a sixth-place finish Saturday evening.
Head coach Sean Schimmel and six Razorback women travelled to the National event looking to conclude their summer training on a high note.
“Going into the weekend at Nationals we really wanted to represent the University and what we’ve been doing all summer with our work, and that definitely showed,” said Schimmel. “All the lifetime-best times and Anna Mayfield’s team record was a reflection of what they dedicated themselves to this summer and it showed up there. We had a great experience, a bunch of lifetime bests, but it’s about connecting to what we can do next.”
Mayfield re-signed her name to the Arkansas Swimming and Diving record book after breaking her own school record with a 400-meter freestyle time of 4:15.77. Mayfield’s lead off leg in the 4x200 long course free style (2:02.78) was a personal best and new Arkansas team record.
“I think Anna’s 400-freestyle stood out to me,” said Schimmel. “She did her best time a couple weeks ago at 4:17 and she came into nationals on the big stage and dropped two and a half more seconds and broke the team record again. Anytime our women do things they’ve never done before it’s always really exciting and we work hard at doing that, so we had a bunch of those and that was really exciting. It was a really strong weekend for us.”
Stoehr captured three new lifetime-bests in the long course 100-meter (58.67), 200-meter (2:04.18) and 400-meter (4:21.78) freestyle.
Monroe claimed two lifetime best times at the National event in the long course 100-meter freestyle (56.84) and the long course 50-meter freestyle (26.28) time trials.
Daniels snagged two new lifetime-bests in the 200-meter (2:35.63) and 50-meter (32.14) breast.
“Last year we just had Nikki Daniels go to the World Championship trials,” said Schimmel. “So that was just one person and now this summer we had six women out there, so it’s about building our championship culture. It’s about taking that next step forward and having that connection from last spring through the summer in terms of what we’re doing here on campus in the fall. That’s a big deal. That’s going to help us accomplish our goals. Our expectations are high, these women just want to do things at a very high level. The group this summer has really backed that up.”
Arkansas will return to meet-action with an inter-squad meet on September 13, at 8 a.m., in the Arkansas Natatorium in Fayetteville.