For the second consecutive year, sophomore Victor Brasil will compete at the Division III National Championships.

This year, the meet will be held on March 16-20 in Greensboro, North Carolina.

Brasil is a two-time Northwest Conference champion in his best event, 100-yard breaststroke. Last year, he placed 18th overall.

This year he has qualified for the 100 breast and 200 breast.

He is ranked 15th respectively in the 100 breast.

Being the only swimmer on Linfield’s squad to qualify, “Coach Kyle can focus and pay attention to just me,” Brasil said.

Brasil is hoping to improve immensely.

In preparation for nationals, he is swimming every day and working with weights a bit just for strength.

He is not swimming as many yards as he did during the season, but the quality of the yards he is swimming is making a difference.

Brasil joked that he is old said, “my body doesn’t recover as fast now.”

He is focusing on endurance, which will come in handy, especially for the 200 breast.

In Brazil, he normally swims the 50 and 100 breast exclusively so adding the 200 breast is new to him.

“I intend to swim my best and see what happens,” Brasil said about the 200 breast.

He has much higher hopes for his specialty event, the 100 breast. He hopes to place in the top eight, the finals.

“To qualify for top-eight, I am going to have to swim 55.40 [seconds] and to make top five, I have to swim 54.90,” Brasil said.

He said these two races are entirely different because the “100 is swimming strong the entire race and the 200 is a different pace.”

During the season, in the 400 medley relay, he swam a 54.50 on the 100 breast leg so he is hoping to get a time similar to that.

“Victor is a great leader on the team,” Coach Kyle Kimball said.

He has encountered many challenges this year as an international student but has overcome them and has qualified for the second year in a row,” he said.

When asked what it would take for Brasil to qualify for the top eight, Kimball said, “Victor is doing some fine tuning currently in the pool that we hope will help him swim a little faster at Nationals.

“He will enter the meet having the experience from being there last year and that will help.

“Victor just needs to swim confident and let it happen,” Coach Kimball said.