Adams, Heller set varsity records in prelims on day two of NCAA Championship

March 7, 2013

University Relations

Jamie Foland
907-474-6807

Both Margot Adams (Anchorage, Alaska/Political science) and Bente Heller (Hamburg, Germany/Communication) rewrote the Alaska women's swimming record book Thursday morning as the duo turned in varsity-record times during preliminaries at the 2013 NCAA Swimming and Diving Championship at the CrossPlex Complex.

Adams, a sophomore from Anchorage, got it started in the 100 yard butterfly as she completed the four-length race in 54.96 seconds, good for third place heading into this evening's final.

That time tied her own varsity record, which she set a year ago on March 15, 2012, at the NCAA meet. She bested her previous season-best time of 55.35 seconds, which had seeded her fourth for the event.

Minutes later, Heller, a junior from Hamburg, Germany, continued the Nanooks' success in the 200 yard freestyle as she took sixth place in the qualifying race with a new varsity-record time of 1:50.69.

That mark was .09 faster than her previous program record, set back on Dec. 3, 2011, at the Husky Invitational. Heller also swam the event .85 seconds faster than her seeded time, which had her ranked 17th coming into the championship.

Adams and Heller became the first swimmers in school history to make it to make it to a championship final on the same day and Heller is now the third Nanook in history to become an individual championship fnalist. The first was former Nanook Mariya Pavlovskaya (400 IM) and Adams. Adams also became the first swimmer in program history to swim in two championship finals in a career.

Thursday's finals will begin at 2:30 p.m. (AKST) and the races will be web streamed at NCAA.com.