YORK, Pa. – Sophomore Rikki Sargent set her third school record of the weekend on Sunday and the 400-yard freestyle relay placed fifth to clinch a seventh-place team performance for the Shippensburg University women's swimming team as it concluded its weekend at the 2014 PSAC Championships held at the Graham Aquatic Center.

Sargent finished fifth in the 200-yard breaststroke with a finals time of 2:19.65 – a slight improvement on her new school record of 2:19.91 that she set during morning qualifying. The performance moved Shippensburg from eighth place in the team standings into seventh place by one point entering the final relay.

Needing to finish ahead of Clarion to secure seventh place, the quartet of Sargent, senior Julie Brown, junior Tara Yohe and sophomore Carolyn Meier came through with a time of 3:29.81 to defeat the eighth-place Golden Eagles (3:35.94).

"I was really excited to see our women make the push to move past Clarion on the final day," head coach Tim Verge '89 said of his Raider squad. "We didn't have a lot of swims today, but the ones we had we made them count. It was exciting to have it come down to the relay because I felt our girls were a group that we could really depend on to get the job done."

Earlier in the evening, Meier won the consolation finals of the 100-yard freestyle by swimming a new personal best of 52.16 seconds. Meier finished the weekend with two consolation final victories (she won the 50 freestyle 'B' final on Thursday), placed in all four of her individual events with personal bests and broke the school record in the 200-yard freestyle.

Sargent finished the weekend with fifth-place finishes in the 100- and 200-yard breaststroke and the 400-yard IM and a seventh-place finish in the 200-yard IM. Through two years, she has posted seven Top-10 finishes in PSAC Championship competition and holds the school records in all four of the events she swam this weekend.

"Rikki had a tremendous swim today in breaking another school record," Verge said. "She truly had a wonderful weekend."

Senior Colleen Stiles reached the 'A' final of the 200-yard backstroke Sunday and finished eighth in 2:09.35, while junior Jess Trgovic placed 14th in 2:09.46. Trgovic qualified for the finals with a PR in prelims of 2:08.42. Both women sit at No. 3 and No. 6, respectively, on SU's all-time list for the event.

SU's two seniors – Brown and Stiles – wrapped up distinguished tenures with the Raiders. Brown placed sixth in the 100-yard freestyle on Sunday to conclude a decorated run as a 12-time PSAC place-winner – including a 2013 PSAC Championship in the 50-yard freestyle. She was a Top-8 finisher in all four of her seasons in both the 50- and 100-yard freestyle events.

Brown also achieved six NCAA All-America citations in her career – including an individual All-America honor after an eighth-place finish in last year's 50-yard freestyle. She earned five honorable mention All-America finishes with relays.

Stiles wraps up a wonderful collegiate career with five individual PSAC place-winning performances during her tenure, including three scoring efforts in the 200-yard backstroke, as well as contributions this weekend to both medley relays.

"I was excited that Julie and Colleen both got to finish their career swimming in championship finals of their events tonight," Verge said. 

Despite just 11 swimmers in competition, SU bested six other schools from the conference to match its place of a season ago.

"All in all, this was one of our better conference meets in recent years," Verge said. "As I mentioned before, we didn't have a lot of swimmers but I think the ones we had really made it count. We had four school records broken, and several additions to the Top-10 lists for events as well as numerous personal bests."

"It was a really fun group to coach this year, and I am excited about where we are headed for the future."

SUNDAY PRELIMS:

Sargent broke her own school record in the 200-yard breaststroke by 1.6 seconds to qualify in the sixth position for the 'A' group finals as five women reached evening finals in their respective events.

In the 200 breaststroke, Sargent posted four splits under 36.6 seconds, including a sturdy split of 35.25 seconds on her second 50-yard leg, to put herself in position for the evening final with her new record time of 2:19.91.

Brown and Meier qualified for the 100-yard freestyle. Brown's time of 52.19 seconds has her tied for the No. 4 seed and is five-tenths of a second off her school-record pace. Meier will be the lead seed in the 'B' consolation final after posting a time of 52.53 seconds.

Stiles snuck into the 'A' final of the 200-yard backstroke as the No. 8 seed, touching the wall in 2:08.08. Trgovic will be in the 'B' final as the No. 10 seed after notching a personal best of 2:08.42. The two ladies are currently situated at the No. 3 and No. 6 position in the school record book for the event.

Many Raiders recorded more personal bests during the morning. Freshman Rebecca Burke swam a time trial in the 200-yard breaststroke of 2:33.91, which is a new personal best by more than four seconds. Junior Devon Perugini achieved a new PR in the 100-yard freestyle of 56.04 seconds and freshman Kaytee Garcia completed the mile in 18:15.06.