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Madam Butterfly does it again.

Tennessee captain Christine Magnuson - five weeks after setting the SEC record in the 100-yard butterfly, won the 100 butterfly at the NCAA women's swimming championships Friday night in Columbus, Ohio.

It wasn't as if she won from start to finish. Fact is, she trailed Arizona's Hailey Degolia by .02 of a second coming off the wall at 50 yards. That's when the UT senior turned it on, defeating Degolia and last year's champion, Dana Vollmer of Cal, with a 50.70 swim.

Magnuson is only the second Lady Vol swimmer to win an NCAA title. Nicole deMan claimed the 50 freestyle in 1996. Tracy Bonner and Kathy Pesek won diving titles.

To Magnuson, the race was fun, once she put her game plan into action.

"I knew there were going to be a couple of people faster than me in the first 50," she said. "I knew that after the 50 turn I needed to pick it up. I said to myself, 'I gotta go!'

" At the third turn, I just changed gears, kicked hard off the wall, picked up my tempo and stayed strong. I just had fun."

Magnuson's clocking was the fourth-fastest in women's short-course swimming.

Magnuson was just beginning to warm up. Her 200-yard leg of 1:44.45 on the 800 freestyle relay was the fastest of the 19 teams in the race. Arizona won it in 6:58.69. UT was 11th (7:09.14) despite Magnuson's pace-setting swim.

When Friday's events ended, UT had slipped a spot to eighth with 120 points. Georgia, by finishing fourth in the 800 relay, took over seventh (133). Arizona leads with 361, followed by Auburn (244), Texas A&M (227), Stanford (212), Cal (203) and Florida (178).

UT's Michele King, who was runnerup in the 50 freestyle Thursday, barely made it into the 100 breaststroke finals and finished eighth in 1:01.32 - a race won by Southern Cal's Rebecca Soni (59.19). UT's Jamie Saffer placed 13th,.

Meanwhile, the SEC continues to turn in top individual performances at Ohio State University.

Florida's Caroline Burckle, who broke Olympian Janet Evans' 1990 NCAA 500 freestyle record Thursday night, won the 200 freestyle in 1:43.10.

Gemma Spofforth, Buckle's teammate, was the 100 backstroke's champion in 51.78.

But the NCAA party has been crashed by Arizona, which has dominated relays. The Wildcats, who set an NCAA record in the 200 freestyle relay Thursday, broke its year-old NCAA mark, winning at 1:35.29. Arizona swam it in 1:36.09 last year. UT was 10th at 1:39.48.

© 2008, Knoxville News Sentinel Co.