<te cards and a lot of dedication, four time All-American Kale Zicafoose ’11 swam her way to third place at NCAA Division III nationals in the 100 backstroke.
This spring was her fourth and last time at Nationals, so she had high expectations.
“I set goals and wrote them down on note cards all over my room and in my locker and then looked at them everyday,” said Zicafoose. “It is a mentality, something that I am always thinking about, throughout every practice, the whole year.”
Her first note card just said “55.99,” which meant that Zicafoose wanted to break 56 seconds in her one hundred yard backstroke. Not content with simply making it to Nationals, Zicafoose’s second note card encouraged her to place in the top three. Her swim of 55.84 seconds during finals on March 23rd fulfilled both goals.
The third card was for her other event, the two hundred yard backstroke. Although Zicafoose didn’t reach her goal of less than two minutes and one second, her time of 2:01.9 was a personal best. “It was a best time, which is really all you can ask for. I hadn’t gotten a best time.”
“I haven’t taken the cards down yet,” admitted Zicafoose. “I still look at them everyday, but now it is with a sense of accomplishment instead of a sense of worry and stress.”
However, despite all these honors, Zicafoose’s season highlight was being named the 2011 MIAC Championships Swimmer of the Meet.
“I was blown away and to hear the team cheer…it was just such a surprise, and I was so incredibly honored. When I was younger, I would see the people who got it, and they just seemed to me to be on a whole different level. To know that I had reached that level was really something special.”
Editor’s Note: Zicafoose wasn’t the only Knight to excel at nationals. Eric Brenner ‘11 represented the men’s team on the diving boards, earning All-American honorable mention with a 10th-place finish on the 1-meter board. It was Brenner’s second consecutive honorable mention after finishing 16th last year. Congratulations to both Kale and Eric on their incredible senior seasons.