COLUMBUS, Ohio, March 22. TALK about a vault up the charts. Oregon State's Saori Haruguchi put together a remarkable meet to clinch a victory in the 200 fly at the NCAA Division I Women's Championships.
Haruguchi's time of 1:52.39 not only broke the NCAA meet record of 1:53.02 set by Elaine Breeden of Stanford with last year's victory, it gave Oregon State its first national championship in NCAA Swimming and Diving history.
The performance also stands as the fourth-best of all time behind only Natalie Coughlin's 1:51.91, Breeden's 1:52.27 and Dana Vollmer's 1:52.37. The time also jumped Haruguchi from 14th all time to fourth.
Breeden, meanwhile, wound up second with a time of 1:53.27 as she could not duplicate her title-winning effort of 1:53.02 from last year. Auburn's Ava Ohlgren rounded out the top three with a time of 1:54.64.
Arizona owned a 126-point lead after the event with 444 points compared to Auburn's 318. Stanford caught up to Texas A&M as the teams tied for third with 283 points, while California owned fifth with 257 points.