No Northwestern women’s swimmer has automatically qualified for the NCAA championships held March 20 in Auburn, Ala.

This weekend three Wildcat swimmers will travel to Minnesota for the NCAA’s Last Chance Meet. The meet will be just that — the final meet for NU swimmers to polish times in their events and make the cut for the championships. Senior butterflier Carmen Cosgrove will be joined by freshman backstroker Katie Paglini and junior freestylist Erica Rose for Sunday’s meet.

They will need to mentally rebound from last week’s disappointing seventh-place finish at the Big Ten Championships, where the Cats had only two swimmers finish in the top five of an event.

Cosgrove finished third in the 100-yard butterfly, and junior Vicky West had a fifth-place finish in the 1,650 freestyle.

Although there are no swimmers with automatic A-times on the NU squad, there are several that have acquired B-times. B-times are deemed by the NCAA as provisional — after all the swimmers with automatic times are counted, the next fastest provisional times will be given invitations to the championships until the event is full.

Sophomore Brielle Bovee earned a provisional time in the 200 butterfly at the NU Invitational on Nov. 24, along with Paglini and Rose. However, Bovee’s shoulder injury forced her out of competition for so long that an A-time seems out of reach, NU coach Jimmy Tierney said.

“It just doesn’t make a whole lot of sense,” he said. “In terms of making NCAA’s it’s probably too much of a leap. We’d rather have her healthy.”

West won’t be making the trip, Tierney said, because he believes that her provisional time may be fast enough to qualify for the NCAAs.

“We’re gonna let her time ride and hopefully it will,” he said. “There’s more chance of people jumping over Carmen than jumping over Vicky.”