In the first year of competition in a new conference, the Brenau Golden Tigers swimming and diving team used eight first-place finishes over the three-day meet to capture the 2018 Appalachian Athletic Conference Swim Championship in Kingsport, Tennessee on February 8-10.
This championship follows three consecutive titles in the Golden Tigers previous conference, the Appalachian Swimming Conference, which Brenau left last year along with its departure from the Southern States Athletic Conference.
The Golden Tigers team, ranked ninth in the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics, collected 701 team points to edge past Asbury College’s 663 points for the overall team championship. Milligan College earned 401 points for third place, while Columbia College and West Virginia Tech rounded out the top five finishers.
Brenau started well by capturing two first place finishes on the opening day. Ayana Daniels, a junior from Snellville, Georgia, earned first place finish in 1 meter diving with a finals score of 123.5, while the 200 medley relay team of junior Lindsay Dowling from Winston, Georgia, sophomore Yanne Toussaint from Varsseveld, The Netherlands, seniors Alisha Hodgetts and Ella Kleinschmidt, both from Australia, also won in a time of 1:49.51.
On day two, the Tigers racked up five first-place finishes.
The 200 Freestyle relay team of Woodstock, Georgia, freshman Kamryn Carter, Toussaint and the two Aussies – Hodgetts from Perth and Kleinschmidt from Hervey Bay – captured top honors with a time of 1:40.02, while the 400 Medley relay team of Dowling, Toussaint, Hodgetts and Kleinschmidt also captured top honors in 4:00.36
Individually, Nikoletta Alvanou , a freshman from Thessaloniki, Greece, also earned first place in the 400 IM in 4:36.20, outpacing her competition by over five seconds. Hodgetts won the 100 Butterfly in a meet record time of 58:35, while Dowling also set a meet record time of 57.84 in the 100 Backstroke to capture the squad’s third individual title of the day.
Dowling also capped off the final day of competition with an individual win in the 200 Backstroke in 2:07.02.
Brenau next looks to compete at the NAIA National Championships from Feb. 28 through March 3 in Columbus, Georgia. The Golden Tigers placed fourth at the national championships in 2017.
