Live Results | Collins Interview

Honore Collins of the New York University women's swimming & diving team won the 200-yard IM on day one of the NCAA Division III Swimming & Diving Championships, which are being held Wednesday-Saturday, March 15-18, at the Conroe ISD Natatorium in Shenandoah, TX.

The freshman won in an NYU-record time of 2:00.97, breaking her own school mark of 2:02.96. The Evanston, IL, native posted the top time in this morning's preliminaries (2:01.42), before racing to victory in the evening finals.

"Honore had an incredible performance tonight. She attacked the race from the onset and wanted it more than anyone else in the field," said Head Coach Trevor Miele. "She is an amazing racer and I am super proud of her!"

Collins is NYU's first-ever swimming national champion. She will also be competing in the 100-yard butterfly and the 100-yard breaststroke at the NCAA's.

"I'm so happy that I can wear our cap and that I got the win," said an ecstatic Collins after her victory. "I love my team and I love swimming here at  NYU."

Haley Wen took 12th place in the 500-yard freestyle in a time of 4:56.77, earning Honorable Mention All-America honors.

"Haley put up a great performance tonight in the 500. She swam a smart race and was able to bring it home very fast," continued Miele. "I'm looking forward to seeing them carry their performances tonight over into their events tomorrow."

Also earning Honorable Mention All-America honors was Carmen White, who took 13th in the three-meter diving competition with a score of 424.25.

"Carmen missed one dive early in the competition. Some would have let down and given up, but she came back and hit all her dives to finish in the top 16," explained Diving Coach Todd Kolean. "I couldn't be more proud of her first national event."

FYI...

- Overall, the Violets are in ninth place with a total of 29 points. Emory University leads with 137 points.

- The 200-medley relay team of May Li, Collins, Kathy Lin, and Elise Gibbs finished in seventh place in the final, but was disqualified for an exchange infraction.

- Julien Zhu took 18th in the 200-yard IM (2:05.62).

- Grace Wakabayashi (4:59.67) and Jaime Robinson (5:05.42) took 21st and 31st, respectively, in the 500-yard freestyle.

- Gibbs took 20th in the 50-yard freestyle (23.65).

Competition resumes from Shenandoah at 10:00 am (central) with the preliminary session. The finals begin at 6:00 pm (central).