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WEST LAFAYETTE, Indiana, March 20. IN one of the first monumental upsets of the night, Indiana's Kate Fesenko just had way too much off the walls for three-time defending champion Gemma Spofforth of Florida.
Fesenko clocked a time of 1:49.92 for the win, breaking the meet record of 1:50.54 set by Kirsty Coventry back in 2005. The performance moved Fesenko into lofty heights as one of just three swimmers to have broken 1:50 behind Spofforth (1:48.34) and Natalie Coughlin (1:49.52). The 1:49.92 also is the fifth fastest time of all time, crushing Fesenko's previous best time of 1:51.32. Fesenko became the first Hoosier to win the 200 back, and just the fourth Hoosier to ever win a national title. Notably, she is the first female Hoosier to ever win a swimming title as the three other NCAA wins for IU came from divers.
"It was my goal of this year," Fesenko said. "I was training to try to win the NCAA title, so I'm really happy right now. It's hard to say anything about my feelings because I still have one more race, but I'm really happy I got my goal accomplished. I have done a lot of hard training and now it has paid off."
Spofforth touched second in 1:50.24, the sixth-best effort ever, coming up short of becoming the first swimmer to ever win the 200 back four straight year. Meanwhile, teammate Teresa Crippen turned in a 1:50.99 for third – the 15th-fastest effort all time.
Arizona went 7-8-11-12-14 with Caitlin Iversen (1:54.14), Ana Agy (1:54.54), Erin Campbell (1:54.46), Jennifer Forster (1:54.48) and Hannah Ross (1:54.90) helping Arizona to a top team tally of 303.5 points.
Georgia stood second with 289.5 points, while Florida (281), California (272) and Stanford (266.5) making up the rest of the top five.
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