{"id":19043,"date":"2017-11-22T16:11:21","date_gmt":"2017-11-22T21:11:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=19043"},"modified":"2017-11-22T16:13:07","modified_gmt":"2017-11-22T21:13:07","slug":"hemburrow-finds-her-way-into-ncaas-top-division-in-swimming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/hemburrow-finds-her-way-into-ncaas-top-division-in-swimming\/","title":{"rendered":"Hemburrow finds her way into NCAA\u2019s top division in swimming"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Jake Courtepatte
\n<\/strong>
\nLaura Hemburrow had to wade through dozens of suitors to find the right school for her in the NCAA\u2019s Division I program.
\nPardon the pun, but it is pretty impressive.
\nThe Aurora swimmer officially signed her letter of intent last Wednesday to hit the pool for the New Mexico State Aggies in September, one of the top schools in American college swimming.
\n\u201cIn March and April, she was up to around thirty schools looking at her,\u201d said Hemburrow\u2019s mother Tanya. \u201cBy around mid-summer Lauren narrowed it down to about ten.\u201d
\nThough receiving offers from some of the most prolific schools in the NCAA, it was a combination of the academics, the team vibe, and the team\u2019s head coach after meeting them during a recruiting trip that brought Hemburrow to her decision.
\n\u201cI just had that feeling, like I just wanted to go there, as soon as I got on campus,\u201d said Hemburrow. \u201cI still had more recruiting trips lined up but I knew this was the place.\u201d
\nAn all-girls swimming team, a rarity in college sports, was a drawing point for Hemburrow.
\n\u201cYou get more focus on you and your team with an all-girls team, it just seemed like a good fit,\u201d said Hemburrow.
\nWith aspirations of Olympic swimming in her future sights, it was also the nationality of the coach that really caught Hemburrow\u2019s eye: like her, and few others in the top division of American college athletics, he is a Canadian.
\n\u201cThat was one of the [dealmakers],\u201d said Tanya. \u201cWhen I got the call, and (Lauren) was like \u2018mom, the coach is Canadian.\u201d
\nCoach Rick Pratt\u2019s nationality seems to have sparked interest in a number of people, with a handful of Canadians on the New Mexico State swim team.
\n\u201cSomething like going to Canadian trials may not be possible with other schools in Division I, but I think because the coach is Canadian, if I can make Canadian trials every year it might be something they can help out with,\u201d said Hemburrow.
\n\u201cSome universities don\u2019t take their international students to their individual trials, it\u2019s just based off of the US trials, but he\u2019s one of the few in the universities that would show interest.\u201d
\nHemburrow is looking forward to the high-tech equipment, both in the weight room and in the state-of-the-art 50-metre pool on campus, to achieve her dreams of one day making Olympic trials.
\nShe grew up swimming with the Newmarket Stingrays.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Laura Hemburrow had to wade through dozens of suitors to find the right school for her in the NCAA\u2019s Division I program.
\nPardon the pun, but it is pretty impressive.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":19037,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[24,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19043","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-sports","category-sports"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/2017-11-23-06.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-4X9","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-21 16:00:03","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19043","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19043"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19043\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19037"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}