Propelled by four individual national champions and a strong team showing, the Brenau University Golden Tigers swim team finished third at the 2015 NAIA Swimming and Diving National Championship Meet in Oklahoma City, March 3-7 – the highest ranking in school history. Two weeks earlier, however, the team picked up another honor when the college swimming coaches organization voted the Tigers the top All-American scholar team in the nation among NAIA colleges, universities and junior colleges.

In the Oklahoma City meet, several Brenau swimmers earned All-American status: senior Michelle Billeaud, of Lafayette, Louisiana; senior Shelby Rumker, of Douglas, Georgia; junior Mary Katherine Jabbia, of Slidell, Louisiana; freshman Ella Kleinschmidt, from Hervey Bay, Queensland, Australia; freshman Alisha Hodgetts, of Perth, Australia; sophomore Courtney Hayward, from Townsville, Queensland, Australia; and Talia Sola, a sophomore from Madrid, Spain. Rumker also picked up membership on the NAIA national scholar-athlete All-American team. See the Golden Tigers website, BrenauTigers.com, for more details about individual and team performance.

To win the Scholar All-American team designation, the Brenau swimmers racked up a collective 3.52 grade point average during the fall term of the 2014-15 academic year.

The swim team success, however, had one downside: At the end of the season, NCAA Division I Dartmouth in Hanover, New Hampshire, recruited the team’s national and four-time conference “coach of the year” Blaire Bachman as an assistant coach for its team.