Nov. 28, 2011

BALTIMORE, MD - Johns Hopkins women's swimming sophomore Taylor Kitayama garnered Bluegrass Mountain Conference and National Collegiate Division III Women's Swimmer of the Week honors after an outstanding performance at the Terp Cup last week. It is the second time this season and third in her career that she has been named the conference swimmer of the week. This is also the second time in her career that she has been named the National Swimmer of the Week by CollegeSwimming.com.

Kitayama turned in three career best times, broke two school records and posted two NCAA automatic qualifying times. On the first night of competition, she swam backstroke on the 400 Medley Relay (3:51.36), that is the fifth fastest time in school history in the relay and was an NCAA B time. Her leg of 56.49 in the 100 Back was also the fifth fastest in school history and an NCAA B time. On the second day, Kitayama swam the 100 Fly (56.43) and 100 Back (55.70). Her time in the 100 Fly was the fourth fastest in school history and a B time. While her time in the 100 Back bested her own school record (55.81) and was an automatic qualifying time. She closed out the meet in impressive fashion, as she broke the school record in the 200 Back, a record she already held, by nearly four seconds. She finished second in the event as she clocked in at 1:58.99 to smash her previous record of 2:02.69. It was also an automatic qualifying time and is the fastest time in Division III this season.

Kitayama has re-written the Hopkins' record book in her short time at Homewood. She owns nine of the 10 fastest times in school history in the 100 Back and eight of the 10 fastest in the 200 Back. She is also a member of the school-record relay teams in the 200 Free, 400 Free and 400 Medley.

Hopkins wraps up the 2011 portion of its schedule this weekend at the Final Fall Fast Festival hosted by Gettysburg College. The meet is slated for to begin at 6:00 pm on December 2 at the Gettysburg College Bullets Pool.