Freshman swimmer Whitney Lopus earned All-American honors in the 100-yard fly after she competed at the NCAA swimming and diving championships last week in College Station, Texas.
As the sole representative from Utah, Lopus competed in the 100 and 200 fly and the 500 free event.
In the first day of competition, Lopus swam the 500 free but didn’t make it past the preliminaries. With a time of 4 minutes 53.58 seconds, she was good enough to place 62nd.
Despite not finishing as well as she would’ve liked in the 500 free, Lopus bounced back and finished in the top 16 of the 100 fly.
“Coming into this meet as a freshman is hard,” said head coach Greg Winslow in a statement. “Whitney’s 500 free wasn’t as good as we would have liked it. Our race strategy in the event needs more work. Whitney bounced back from the setback and performed great.”
With a finish of 52.41 seconds, Lopus broke the school record for the 100 fly and earned All-American honors in the event for placing in the top 16. Lopus became the third Ute in school history to earn All-American honors in swimming.
“It’s great for Whitney to be named an All-American, especially in her freshman year,” Winslow said. “Having an All-American on the team will help lead Utah to bigger and better things.”
In the final day of competition, Lopus was unable to make it past the preliminaries in the 200 fly, as she finished in 27th with a time of 1:57.17.
Lopus’ performances at the meet put Utah as one of the top 50 in team standings at the national championships.
“It was definitely an exciting meet,” Winslow said of the championships. “We’ll be back here next season and Utah will have more athletes competing.”