March 1, 2008

PITTSBURGH, Pa. - In the finals of the 200 yard freestyle on Saturday night at Trees Pool, sophomore Sarah Czar (Egg Harbor Township, N.J.) registered a winning time of 1:50.96 to capture 20 team points for Villanova at the ECAC Championships. This weekend's tournament is being held at the University of Pittsburgh.

Czar qualified for the ECAC meet in both the 100 and 200 yard freestyle races. She posted a time of 1:52.24 in preliminary heats on Saturday morning to own the fastest time among 35 qualifiers. In the finals she improved her time by more than a second to beat Vermont's Colleen Clark and the rest of the field by 1.08 seconds.

The preliminaries of the 100 yard freestyle will be held on Sunday morning, with finals later in the day. Czar enters the event seeded third with a top time of 51.19 seconds. That mark is just 1.28 seconds behind Navy's Thuy Mi Dinh, whose top time is 49.91.