GENEVA, OHIO – Senior Sophia Gerhart (Spring Mills, Pa./Penn Valley Area) earned an All-America certificate in the 400-yard individual medley to highlight West Chester University's Day 3 at the 2024 NCAA Division II Swimming & Diving Championships inside the Spire Institute Thursday evening.
 
West Chester jumped up six spots to 14th overall in the team standings while Nova Southeastern maintained its comfortable lead with 278 points to Drury's 227.5 points.
 
Gerhart earned 11 points for the Golden Rams with her eighth-place finish in the 400 IM. She qualified seventh in the morning with a personal-best time of 4 minutes, 22.12 seconds, which is fourth all-time at WCU. She swam the evening session in 4:23.65.
 
"It feels amazing," Gerhart said afterwards. "I got it done in the morning, and that is all I wanted to do. The last 400 IM I'll ever swim, and it was an All-America performance at NCAAs. That's all I could have asked for."
 
Senior Mikayla Niness (Spring City, Pa./Owen J. Roberts) placed 14th overall in the 200 freestyle. She was the only Golden Ram swimming at night in that event. She qualified 16th in the morning, which guaranteed her a swim at night. She touched the wall in 1:50.95. Then, she bettered that and moved up two spots with a 1:50.20 in the evening.
 
Keeley Durkin (Brookhaven, Pa./Sun Valley) was 18th, and Danielle Stewart (Dover, Del./Caesar Rodney) was 38th in the 200 free as well.
 
West Chester's 400 medley relay placed 17th, just missing out on earning points – all of that despite the first two swimmers having never swum a relay at nationals before. Freshman Anna Evans (Lansdale, Pa./North Penn) and Madelyn Koehle (State College, Pa./State College Area) swam the backstroke and breaststroke to lead off the medley relay. Isabella Kil (Enola, Pa./East Pennsboro) and Samantha Trumble (Dallastown, Pa./Dallastown) finished up with the butterfly and freestyle. That foursome put up a time of 3:46.88, which was about half of a second behind West Florida for a scoring slot.
 
West Chester will be back at it on Friday morning at 10 a.m. for prelims in the 500 free, 100 back, 100 breast and 200 fly. Finals in those events will take place Friday evening at 5:30 p.m.