Keisha Hill, Staff Reporter

Alia Atkinson ... in superb form for Texas A&M last weekend. - File

ALIA ATKINSON turned in some superb performances at the Texas A&M women's swimming and diving three-day Art Adamson Invitational meet at the weekend.

Atkinson, a sophomore at Texas A&M, had two individual wins in the 100- and 200-yard breaststroke races in National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) automatic qualifying times.

She took the 100-yard breast-stroke in 1:01.03 and the 200-yard breaststroke in 2:12.93. She also scored victories as a part of the A team in the 200- and 400-yard medley relays. In both relays, she had the fastest breaststroke splits of 27.97 and 1:00.76 respectively. Both relay team times were NCAA consideration times of 1:40.07 and 3:38.46, respectively.

National record holder

The 2004 Olympian is the Jamaica national record holder in an eye-popping seven events.Atkinson also had consideration times in the 200-yard individual medley (2:03.22) and the 100-yard butterfly (54.63). In the last event of the day she had two consideration times in one race as she led off the 400-yard free relay C team in 50.33, a consideration time for the individual event, and the team made the standard with a time of 3:23.70.

The sixth-ranked Texas A&M women's swimming and diving team ended the tournament with a bang by capturing first place and recording a total of five NCAA automatic qualifying performances during the sixth and final session of the Adamson meet.

The Aggies will now spend much of the next month and a half training and preparing for the championship season in early spring.