March 23, 2002

AUSTIN, TEXAS -- Katie Hathaway lowered her own Atlantic Coast Conference record in the 200-yard breaststroke Saturday night to highlight the last night of action for the North Carolina women's swimming and diving team in the 2002 NCAA Women's Division I Swimming and Diving Championships at the University of Texas' Lee and Joe Jamail Texas Swimming Center.

The Tar Heels finished 13th in the Championships with 110 points. Carolina was 16th after the first night, improved to 14th after the second night and moved up one more spot on the final night. Finishing right behind Carolina was Wisconsin in 14th place with 84 points while Pacific and Miami of Florida tied for 15th with 76 points.

Auburn won the NCAA championship with 474 points while defending champion Georgia finished second with 386 points. Stanford was third with 301 points, Southern California fourth with 300.5 points, Arizona fifth with 291 points, Texas sixth with 267.5 points, Florida seventh with 249 points, California eighth with 245 points, SMU ninth with 178 points and Indiana and Arizona State tied for 10th with 136 points. Amongst ACC schools Virginia was 12th with 125 points, UNC 13th with 110 points, Florida State 24th with 24 points and Clemson tied for 41st with four points. Maryland, Georgia Tech and Duke had entries in the meet but did not score.

Hathaway, a senior from Matthews, N.C., had set the new conference record in Saturday morning's preliminaries with a time of 2:11.74. She lowered it on Saturday night as she took fourth place in the 200-yard breaststroke overall with a time of 2:11.12. It was the final individual swim at the NCAA Championships in Hathaway's career and she has made All-America status in 11 of her 12 career individual swims. Earlier in the meet, Hathaway finished 12th in the 200-yard individual medley and ninth in the 100-yard breaststroke.

Hathaway's sophomore teammate Becky Acker earned honorable mention All-America honors in the 200-yard breaststroke for the second straight year as she took 14th in the event with a time of 2:13.64.

Carolina had two swimmers earn honorable mention All-America honors in the 100-yard freestyle as sophomore Jessi Perruquet won the consolation heat and finished ninth overall in the event with a time of 49.36 seconds. Junior Christy Watkins took 15th place in the 100-yard freestyle with a time of 50.19 seconds. On Thursday, Watkins finished 10th in the 50-yard freestyle and on Friday, Perruquet took third place in the 200-yard freestyle.

Carolina also finished 11th in the 400-yard freestyle relay with a school record time of 3:20.17. The relay included Watkins on the front end (49.74), Hathaway (50.36), senior Stefanie Rulis (51.74) and Perruquet (48.33).

All five of UNC's relay teams scored at this year's NCAA meet. The 400-yard freestyle relay finished 11th, the 200-yard freestyle relay and the 200-yard medley relay teams were both 12th, the 800-yard freestyle relay 13th and the 400-yard medley relay 15th.

The Tar Heels also had two participants in the 1650-yard freestyle on Saturday night. Senior Molly Sullivan finished 20th in a time of 16:37.29 and sophomore Whitney Smith took 30th place with a time of 16:48.95.