OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla. --- Christine Tixier made a big splash during the first full day of competition at the NAIA Swimming & Diving National Championships by sweeping both the prelims and finals in the 200-yard individual medley.
 
Tixier's win in the finals makes her an NAIA champion in at least one even for the third consecutive season. The last two seasons her championship came in the 100-butterfly, an event she has yet to swim at this year's meet.
 
Tixier broke her own school record with her swim the final. She dropped three seconds from her prelim swim to finish with a 2:04.48 to get the championship.
 
"I was especially excited for Christine when she won her national title," said Head Coach Eddie Shepard. "The 200-IM is the weakest of the three events she is swimming at this meet, but she has been working very hard on it all year. The whole team was so excited when she won that the positive momentum carried through for the rest of the evening."
 
Outside of Tixier's prime individual performance, Biola did most of its damage on Thursday in the relay events. Both the men and women's 200-medley relay teams finished inside the top 10 and set new school records. The women's 800-freestyle relay blazed through its heat, setting a new school record and finishing fourth in the nation.
 
Victoria Andreas, Abby Blake, Angela Kirschner and Tixier posted the 7:45.67 in the lengthy relay to best the previous school record by nearly nine seconds.
 
"I was so impressed with how well we performed across the board," said Shepard. "We had high expectations coming into the meet and we exceeded them today."
 
The men's 800-freestyle relay also finished in fourth place, just four seconds out of first.
 
Alyssa Roden cemented herself as one of the 10 best divers in the NAIA in Wednesday afternoon's competition as she finished in ninth place in the women's one-meter dive. Her score of 155 was her lowest score of the season, but came in a mix of some very tough competition.
 
Biola gets back in the pool tomorrow morning for a bunch of preliminary swims that Shepard hopes to see turn into some finals qualifications and eventually some more national champions and All-Americans.
 
"I am confident that this positive momentum will continue and we will have some amazing swims tomorrow," said Shepard. "We have a lot of potential for success with 27 different swims tomorrow morning, and I think a lot of our swimmers have a shot at making it to the evening swims."
 
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