Sims helps Cal to national title

<p>Cal sophomore Amanda Sims finished fourth in the 200-yard butterfly at the NCAA Swimming Championships on Saturday night in College Station, Texas, a performance that helped lead the Bears to their first national championship.</p><p>Sims, a seven-time North Coast Section champion at Montgomery High, entered the NCAAs seeded seventh in the 100 fly and sixth in the 200 fly.</p><p>But she is leaving Texas with the 100 fly title, a fourth-place finish in the 200 fly, two personal-best times and a team national championship to match the one her father, Paul, won in 1979 while swimming at Cal.</p><p>And you thought you were having a good weekend.</p><p>“Amanda has stayed true to what her path is,” Cal coach Trei McKeever said. “And she’s believed that she’s going to get better and better.”</p><p>The Bears won with 411.5 points to top second-place Georgia, which had 400.5. Cal’s previous best NCAA finish was third in 2007.</p><p>Sims entered with a personal-best time of 1 minute, 54.20 seconds in the 200 fly. But she finished tied for third in the preliminaries Saturday morning in 1:53.54.</p><p>In the finals, she touched the wall in 1:53.60 in an event won by Stanford junior Elaine Breeden, a 2008 Olympian and the American record holder in the event. Breeden finished in 1:50.98.</p><p>Sims’ final performance was yet another reminder of how far she’s progressed in 12 months: At last year’s NCAAs she finished 15th in the 100 fly and 23rd in the 200 fly.</p><p>McKeever, who has led the Bears to 13 straight top-10 NCAA finishes, says Sims is flourishing due to her ability to accept instruction and her relentless work ethic.</p><p>This weekend, Sims also flashed a quiet confidence and poise in nerve-jangling conditions.</p><p>After posting the best time in the 100 fly prelims Friday morning, she entered the finals the No. 1 seed. Her competition included Breeden and Cal senior Dana Vollmer, a former Olympian and NCAA champion in the 100 fly.</p><p>“Amanda really handled the stress of being the No. 1 seed,” Mc-Keever said. “It’s like she just said ‘I belong here and I can beat these guys.’”</p>