COLUMBUS, GA |  The Thomas Men and Women's swim teams competed in the NAIA National Swimming and Diving Championships in Columbus, GA from March 6-9.  Aspen Shipp led both teams in scoring, tallying 38 points.  Emil Schildhauer led the Men wil 27 points.  The two helped the Night Hawks finish in 12th place, overall.

The Women's Team finished in 13th place with a total of 54 points.  Aspen Shipp took 6th place in the 100 yard backstroke, with a time of 57.74, an improvement of 0.28.  Shipp took 7th place in the 200 yard backstroke, with a time of 2:05.32. Shipp also completed the 100 yard butterfly with a time of 57.45 and in 6th place.  Shipp's performances were good enough to accumulate 38 points for the Night Hawks.

Anna Van De Keere had her top performance in the 1650 yard freestyle, with a time of 17:50.63, an improvement of 6.67 and a 7th place finish.  Van De Kerre placed 11th in the 400 yard individual medley, finishing with a time of 4:39.20, an improvement of 1.40.  Van De Kerre added 16 points to the Thomas total for the meet.

The Men collected 156 points, as a unit, good enough for an 8th place finish.  In the individual events, Emil Schildhauer led the way, totalling 27 points.  Schildhauer had a top 10 performance in two of his three individual events, finishing 6th in the 200 yard breaststroke, with a time of 2:03.39 and also placing 9th in the 200 yard individual medley, with a time of 1:51.42 (0.18 improvement).  Schildhauer placed 12th in the 100 yard breaststroke, finishing in 56.07.

Tim Brown took 9th in the 50 yard freestyle, with a time of 20.31.  Brown placed 16th in the 100 yard backstroke at 51.62.  Jofre Mataro's best finish came in the 200 yard backstroke, improving 0.27 to finish 13th. with a time of 1:51.21.  Mataro's individual performance would add 11 points and Brown would add 10 points to the Night Hawk total.

Thomas would finish with a top 10 performance in four of the five relays entered.  The group of Brown, Schildhauer, Diego Alonso, and Ethan Kilgore swam the 200 yard freestyle relay, the 400 yard medley relay, and the 200 yard medley relay, and the 400 yard freestyle relay.  The 200 freestyle came in 6th at a time of 1:23.12 (-1.17), the 400 yard freestyle, 7th, at 3:03.96 (2.61), the 200 yard medley, 6th, at 1:30.49 (-0.23), and the 400 yard medley at 3:23.63.  Kilgore, Brown, Mataro, and Imme Bousema finished 12th in the 800 yard freestyle relay at 6:56.51 (-2.08).

The two teams combined for 210 points and an 12th place finished.  Within the Men's division, The Sun Conference had three of the top 10 performers nationally, and six of the top 15 teams in the nation, including Thomas.   For up-to-date information on this meet and other TU Athletics, visit http://www.TUNightHawks.com.