While the rest of the team was swimming for Puget Sound at the Husky Invitational, a couple of Logger swimmers had a unique opportunity.
Junior Derek Frenzel (Moscow, Idaho) and senior Tracy Wormwood (Elk River, Minn.) were selected to attend the 2012 AT&T Winter National Championships from Nov. 29 to Dec. 1 in Austin, Texas.
The competition was not limited to Division III schools, and included many much larger state schools with well-established swimming programs. Even more exciting, one of the participants in the Winter Championships was Ryan Lochte, of 2012 Summer Olympic fame.
It’s not often that Puget Sound athletics get a chance to compete at a national level, so this tournament represented an opportunity for Frenzel and Wormwood to represent the school in a world-class setting.
For their part, both Frenzel and Wormwood performed well. While each of the swimmers participates in multiple strokes at Puget Sound, they were allowed to showcase only their strongest strokes for the Championships. For Frenzel, that meant the 200 fly, while Wormwood performed the 200 breast. Each swimmer had set school records in their respective stroke the year before at the NWC Championships.
As a swimmer in the 200 fly, Frenzel finished with a time of 1:51.21, good for 30th in the event. On the women’s side, Wormwood finished 54th overall in the 200 breast, with a time of 2:21.81.
It says a great deal about the growing recognition for Puget Sound’s swimming program that the team was able to send delegates to the AT&T Winter National Championships to compete against much larger schools.
And of course, it was a phenomenal opportunity for both Frenzel and Wormwood to prove that they could compete on a national stage.
Frenzel and Wormwood returned to the rest of their team for the last day of Husky Invitational on Sunday, Dec 2.
“It was a great way to show the swimming world that Puget Sound has a swimming program that is striving to be nationally competitive,” Wormwood said.
