Three Cowgirls Compete in NCAA Championships
For the first time ever, the Wyoming Cowgirls have three student-athletes at the NCAA Women’s Swimming and Diving Championships.
Seniors Kari Campbell and Emily Ridout, as well as, sophomore Maria Harutjunjan are competing in Atlanta, GA Thursday through Saturday. The championships officially began Wednesday, but none of the three UW qualifiers were scheduled to compete.
Ridout is competing in the 50 freestyle Thursday, the 100 breaststroke Friday and the 100 freestyle Saturday. Her highest ranking is 34th in the 50 free.
Harutjunjan is part of the 100 breaststroke Friday and the 200 breaststroke Saturday. Her top ranking is 27th in the 100 breast.
Campbell competes on the platform for diving on Saturday. She qualified at last week’s NCAA Zone “E” Diving Championships.
Wyoming head coach Tom Johnson said to have these three at the NCAA championships shows how stellar they’ve been all season.
“Every meet we’ve gone into; those three girls, Emily, Maria and Kari; they’re the kind of girls you knew we didn’t have to worry about their events. They were going to show up every weekend… I thought it was a great conference meet for all three of them, and Kari took it to another level at ‘Zones’ and got in on platform.”
All three are first-time participants. In fact, Campbell is the first Cowgirl to ever qualify on the platform, and she’s just fourth diver from UW to reach the championships.