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A new champ Georgia cruises to NCAA title, dethrones Stanford
Posted: Saturday March 20, 1999 10:52 PM
ATHENS, Ga. (AP) -- Georgia's swimmers already sensed their first national championship after the morning preliminaries. The Lady Bulldogs were able to celebrate in style after a dominating performance in the evening. Cheered on by a raucous home crowd, Georgia got surprising victories from Julie Varozza and Keegan Walkley in the first two races Saturday and cruised to victory at the NCAA women's swimming and diving championships. Runner-up Stanford, which had won the title five of the last six years, extended its remarkable run of finishing no lower than second since 1988. But this year belonged to Georgia, which had never finished higher than third in the national meet but swam away from the field with 504.5 points -- 63.5 ahead of the Cardinal. The Lady Bulldogs captured only one victory through the first two days but still managed to build a lead over Stanford because of solid performances throughout the team. That trend continued in the preliminaries Saturday morning, when Georgia put enough swimmers into the finals to all but ensure victory. "We had a pretty good feeling it was over," Varozza said. "A lot of swimmers went out this morning with all their guts and did what we needed to do. That inspired me." Varozza, who missed most of the season while suffering from mononucleosis, was more than just inspired. She was downright remarkable in the 1,650-yard freestyle, shaving nearly 14 seconds off her personal best to win easily with a time of 15 minutes, 59.66 seconds. "I was hoping [for victory] but I really didn't think so," said Varozza, who received her award from Olympic gold medalist Janet Evans. "When I was out sick with mono, I really didn't know how I would do. I just wanted to score as many points as I could for the team." "The one who lit it up was Julie," Georgia coach Jack Bauerle said. "She lifted our team to a different kind of height." Then it was Walkley's turn in the 200 backstroke, which featured two-time defending champion Lindsay Benko of Southern California, who already had won two other events at this meet. Walkley came on strong at the end to nip Stanford's Misty Hyman, while Benko faded to third. Georgia, which entered the night with an 11.5-point lead over the Cardinal, stretched its advantage to 59.5 points with those two victories. "I was just having fun out there," Walkley said. "I was real excited but real relaxed." The Lady Bulldogs weren't through. Martina Moravcova of Southern Methodist won the 10th individual title of her brilliant career in the 100 freestyle, but Georgia got second- and seventh-place finishes from Courtney Shealy and Stefanie Williams to extend the lead. Then, in the only race Georgia was expected to win, Kristy Kowal picked up her second title of the meet in the 200 breaststroke with an NCAA record of 2:07.66, shaving more than two seconds off the mark set by Penny Heyns of Nebraska in 1996. "I didn't have a time in mind going into the race," said Kowal, whose other victory came in the 100 breaststroke Friday. "At one of my turns, I heard that I was on American pace. But I thought I was hearing things." Moravcova, who won three individual titles at the meet, captured the 100 freestyle for the third year in a row and finished with the most individual titles of the modern era. The Slovakian native was surpassed only by Tracy Caulkins, who won 12 titles from 1982-84 before the NCAA limited swimmers to three individual events. "I'm very happy it's over," Moravcova said. "I guess it's a lot. It take two hands to count them." Limim Liu of Nevada, a silver medalist at the 1996 Olympics, broke Summer Sanders' 7-year-old NCAA record in the 200 butterfly with a time of 1:53.36 -- six-hundredths of a second ahead of the previous mark. Hyman picked up her second runner-up finish of the night. The other winners were Laura Wilkinson of Texas in platform diving and Arizona in the 400 freestyle relay. SMU finished third in the team standings with 370.5 points, followed by Arizona with 332, California 315, Southern California 245, Michigan 163, Florida 147, Northwestern 145 and Virginia 140. Georgia became only the fifth school to win in the 18-year history of the women's swimming and diving championships, joining Stanford, Texas, Florida and Southern Cal.
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