COLUMBUS, Ga – Kylee Sears won the 200-yard Freestyle by nearly two seconds Friday to win the first-ever national championship for The Master’s in swimming.

Shortly after the competition got started, thunderstorms moved into the area and forced a delay requiring the pool deck, even though the aquatics center is indoors, to be cleared to safer areas. The delay lasted nearly two hours.

Athletes had been told the competition would not continue and many began to leave. Word got out the competition would resume and athletes had to change their mindset and get warmed up again.

Sears, who was the No. 1 qualifier in the morning preliminaries, finished at 1:50.28, which was off her personal best by half a second but strong enough to win the championship.

“It is really exciting, I really wanted to win,” Sears said. “I didn’t really care about my time, I just really wanted to win.”

Sears said the delay, which started just a few minutes before she was going to race for the title, may have hurt her chances for an NAIA record..

“I’ve been in similar situations at different club meets,” she said. “(So) I just relaxed during (the delay) wondering if they were going to let us swim or not. The only thing I think it might have effected was how fast I went. I feel like I could have gone faster had there not been a lightning delay. I was really ready, but then I kind of got out of it a little bit. My body feel for the water and stuff like that. So I feel I potentially could have gotten the national record if there hadn’t been a lightning delay. But I’m still really happy about winning a national championship.”

That was not the only podium of the night as Dylan Crane came in fifth in the 200-yard Freestyle with a 1:39.01. Crane surpasses Freddie Cole’s seventh-place finish Thursday night as the highest finish by a TMU male swimmer at the national championships. The delay may have favored Crane as it was his personal best.

“First off, it was really interesting with the delay,” Crane said. “I didn’t even think I was going to swim. I had already decided to get it done tomorrow. But when they decided to turn it on again, I had to lock in. Before the race I was just praying to God to give me the opportunity to go fast, but if I don’t do well then I know it’s all in Your plan for me. I went faster than I did in the prelims, so I really want to thank the Lord and the team for being there and helping me succeed.”

David Kugler qualified for the B-Final in the 400-yard Individual Medley, finishing 15th with a 4:11.15.

In the women’s 100-yard Butterfly B-Final, Emma McMurray clocked a 59.06, good for 15th.

Then in the men’s 100-yard Butterfly B-Final, Nilton Dos Santos de Oliveira swam a 49.76 to place 13th.

Camryn Bussey made the B-Final in the 200-yard Freestyle, finishing 15th with a 1:56.92.

And in the 100-yard Backstroke B-Final, Trudy Patterson swam a 58.50, good for 11th.

The final events of the third day of competition were the 400-yard Medley Relays. The men’s team of Michael Loughboro, Freddie Cole and Nilton Dos Santos de Oliveira got on the podium with a sixth-place finish of 3:22.24. The women’s team of Trudy Patterson, Jasmine Biederman, Emma McMurray and Kylee Sears finished eighth with a 3:57.06 to also stand on the podium.

The four podiums on Friday night now make 10 for TMU, by far the most in program history at the NAIA Swim & Dive National Championships in Columbus, Ga.

Overall, The Master’s men’s team is in eighth place, with the women’s team sitting in ninth.

On Saturday, the four-day national championships will conclude with the 200-yard Backstroke, 100-yard Freestyle, 200-yard Breaststroke, 200-yard Butterfly 1,650-yard Freestyle, and both the men’s and women’s 400-yard Freestyle Relay.