Kangas Named NSIC Outstanding Senior of the Year for Ladies’s Swimming & Diving

For Immediate Release

Saturday, February 14, 2026

NSIC Media Relations

WEST FARGO, N.D. — Augustana University’s Maija Kangas was voted by the league’s head coaches because the 2025-26 NSIC Outstanding Senior of the Year in ladies’s swimming and diving. She was acknowledged in the course of the awards presentation on the conclusion of the NSIC Swimming & Diving Championships, which occurred over the previous 4 days. 

The NSIC Outstanding Senior of the Year Award is introduced to a swimming and diving student-athlete who has competed at her establishment for 4 years, demonstrates educational excellence and makes a optimistic impression on her staff and college. The award was initiated within the 2020-21 season to honor a senior who exemplifies the attributes of the mannequin NSIC student-athlete.

A local of Excelsior, Minnesota, Kangas maintains a 4.0 grade-point common whereas finishing her Master of Professional Accountancy after incomes undergraduate levels in accounting and Spanish.

In the pool, Kangas was a key contributor to 3 NSIC championship groups for Augustana and is a two-time convention champion within the 800-yard freestyle relay (2024, 2025). She is the varsity file holder within the 200-yard freestyle (1:52.19) and the 800-yard freestyle relay (7:33.29).

At the 2025-26 NSIC Championships, Kangas earned All-NSIC honors within the 800 yard freestyle relay at this yr’s championship, because the Vikings completed in second place with a time of seven:39.43.

Over her profession on the convention championships, Kangas recorded a number of high finishes:

• 2024-25: Champion, 800 freestyle relay; fifth, 400 IM; eighth, 500 freestyle; tenth, 1,000 freestyle; tenth, 1,650 freestyle.

• 2023-24: Third, 500 freestyle (NCAA B lower); seventh, 1,000 freestyle; ninth, 1,650 freestyle; ninth, 400 IM; leadoff for NSIC champion 800 freestyle relay.

• 2022-23: Second, 400 IM (B lower); fourth, 500 freestyle; fifth, 1,000 freestyle; leadoff for school-record 800 freestyle relay (B lower).

Academically, Kangas is a three-time NSIC Elite 18 Award winner (2024, 2025 & 2026), a 2024-25 All-NSIC Academic Team of Excellence choice and a 2023-24 Academic All-NSIC honoree.

Beyond competitors, Kangas serves as a staff captain and volunteers in numerous neighborhood initiatives.

“Maija defines outstanding in her efforts in the classroom, the pool and the weight room. We are going to miss her leadership in future years,” head coach Andrew Makepeace stated.

About the NSIC

The NSIC is a 16-team, 18-sport, NCAA Division II convention with establishments situated in Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota. The NSIC is a mannequin Division II convention that makes use of high-level athletics competitors to develop champions within the classroom and neighborhood whereas empowering student-athletes to be impactful and optimistic leaders. Formed in 1992 by the merger of the Northern Intercollegiate Conference (males’s league) and the Northern Sun Conference (ladies’s league), the NSIC has flourished over the previous three a long time, maturing right into a union of Upper Midwest schools and universities. The NSIC has received 27 staff nationwide championships and topped 122 particular person nationwide champions. For further data, go to NorthernSun.org.

About NCAA Division II

The NCAA, the nationwide governing physique for faculty athletics, is a volunteer affiliation of greater than 1,000 schools and universities that classify their athletics packages in one in every of three membership divisions. The 300+ establishments in NCAA Division II help a balanced strategy during which student-athletes can earn scholarships primarily based on their athletic skill, pursue their desired educational diploma, and take part in all of the campus and surrounding neighborhood have to supply. Division II student-athletes yearly graduate at charges increased than their pupil physique friends, and so they have entry to one of the best championships-participant ratio among the many NCAA’s three divisions. Division II provides student-athletes the distinctive alternative to compete within the classroom, on the sphere, of their profession, for his or her causes, and on their phrases. For further data, go to NCAA.org.

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