Bloomsburg University's Castaneda Prepares for NCAA Championships

BLOOMSBURG -Bloomsburg University men's swimmer Juan Castaneda (Shamokin/Shamokin) will compete in the 2009 NCAA Division II national swimming championships being held at the Division II Winter Sports Festival in Houston, Texas.

The event kicks off Wednesday at 10 a.m. and runs through Friday. The time trial for the 100-fly, Castaneda's event, begins at 10 a.m. on Thursday. If Castaneda qualifies, he will compete in the final round, which begins at 5:30 p.m. on Thursday.

"Having Juan qualify was more than I imagined in my first year," said Bloomsburg University swimming coach Stu Marvin. "He was coming off a great freshman year but was still nearly two seconds off the cut time when we first met in August. That is a large margin in a 100-yard race."

Castaneda, a sophomore, swam a qualifying time on the final day of the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference swimming championships, turning in a time of 50.21 seconds to earn a trip to the national finals, which are held on the University of Houston campus.

"When he went 50.99 in December, we felt he had an honest chance so we focused his second-half training on making the cut," added Marvin. "It is a great testament to Juan's character to be able to train at that level and achieve Scholar Athlete status by maintaining a 3.4 GPA in physics. He has the entire team - both men and women - talking and dreaming about making NCAA cuts next year."

Castaneda is the first Bloomsburg men's swimmer to make the NCAA championships since 2005-06 when Chris Rumfelt and Travis Backenstoe made the field and just the third swimmer since the 1992-93 season to achieve a trip to the national championships.