GENEVA, OHIO â€" Alli Crenshaw gave Florida Southern another championship Wednesday night at the NCAA Division II National Swimming and Diving Championships by winning the 1,000-yard freestyle for the second year in a row. With Crenshaw’s victory in the first event of the meet, the Moccasins ended day one in ninth place, with Wayne State (MI) taking the early lead.

Crenshaw went into the national finals as the top seed in the 1,000 and the sophomore from Marietta, Georgia was the only swimmer to break 10 minutes with a time of 9:59.65. Swimming in the last heat of the day, she beat out Meredith Boudreaux of Queens (NC), another sophomore, by 3.25 seconds. Crenshaw is the third women’s swimmer to win the 1,000-freestyle in back-to-back seasons and will have a chance to become the first to do so three years in a row in 2015. Tampa’s Heather Glenday, who was the second seed, ended up 21st with a time of 10:23.58. Sophomore Heather Burns (Lake City, Fla.) also swam the 1,000 for Florida Southern and had a time of 10:38.56.

The individual title for Crenshaw is the third of her career. In addition to winning the 1,000-freestyle as a freshman, she also won the 1,650, and she’ll try to earn another championship in that race on Saturday. Mary O’Sullivan is the only other Florida Southern women’s swimmer to win a national title, doing it in both the 200-freestyle and 200-backstroke in 2011.

Even with Crenshaw’s win for Florida Southern, West Chester (PA) took the lead in the team standings by having four of the top 11 in the 1,000, with the top 16 finishers scoring points. The Rams then got an individual win of their own in the 200-yard IM, an event where Florida Southern had only freshman Cassie Ley (Hilton Head, S.C.) in the prelims and no one reach the finals.

In the 50-yard freestyle, sophomore Kelsey Gouge (Snellville, Ga.) was the Moccasins’ only qualifier, and she earned a spot in the consolation finals, which she won with a time of 23.24 seconds. That kept Florida Southern in fifth place. West Chester, meanwhile, had no one finish better than 27th in the prelims, which allowed Drury (MO) to pull within half a point in the team standings.

The only diving event of the day saw Wayne State (MI) move ahead of both those schools, and the Warriors held on to that lead even after Drury won the final event of day one, the 200-medley relay. The Panthers set a new national finals record and edged out the Warriors by 0.48 seconds. Florida Southern finished fifth in the consolation finals with a time of 1:44.17, after the team of sophomore Lauren Reynolds (South Elgin, Ill.), Gouge, freshman Alex Ballard (Kingfisher, Okla.) and Ley had nearly set a school record in Wednesday’s prelims.

The eight points scored by the relay team gave Florida Southern 37 on the day, which tied them with Alaska-Fairbanks for ninth place. The Moccasins were only five points out of the sixth-place position where they finished last year.

Wayne State was first with 120 points, and Drury was second with 114½. Queens (NC) was third with 83 points, and the early leader, West Chester was fourth with 74.

Day two begins with prelims Thursday morning at 10:30, with the finals in five events scheduled for 6 p.m.