Indianapolis, In.-- Junior Alex Anderson won his second individual national championship in the 400 IM on Thursday. Anderson broke the national record in the event, which he set last year, after leading throughout the race.
Anderson found himself seeded fifth after the morning prelims. Alex finished the morning session with a time of 3:53.77, behing a trio of Kenyon swimmers and Depew of Redlands heading into the evening final.
In the final race, Anderson saw himself jump out ahead by a full two seconds after the butterfly leg of the event. That lead started to shrink as Anderson went through the back and breaststroke legs. Alex turned up the heat in the freestyle leg to pull out the victory, breaking his record along the way by a full second at 3:49.25.
"It was a great win from start to finish," said coach Brethauer following the race. "It is always hard to win from the front, but Alex did a fantastic job."
Anderson is the first and only NCAA Division III swimmer to swim under 3:50 in the event. "This is a huge accomplishment for Alex and the UMW swim program as a whole."
"They say that trying to win from the front is hard to do, but that is wrong," Anderson said after his record breaking race. "This was a lot of fun to do in front of a great crowd."
Anderson joins Shannon Hutcherson (women's swimming, 1993), Myra Simpson (women's track, 1996), and Paul Bristow and Dan Uyar (men's tennis doubles) as an individual national champion at UMW and is the first to win multiple championships.
Alex concludes his NCAA run tomorrow in the 200 fly. He is seeded first by a second in the event.
Fans can go to http://www.ncaa.com/sports/swimming-men/d3 for more information on NCAA Division III Swimming.
To get up to the minute information on championship weekend, go to http://www.indianasportscorp.org/events/events-calendar/ncaa-swimming-diving. Live stats for the event can be found here: http://www.ncaa.com/diii-swimming-and-diving-live-scoring.