Channeled effectively, disappointment can fuel achievement.

For University of Hawaii swimmers Franziska Weidner and Bryndis Hansen, coming up short of NCAA qualifying times previously sweetened the accomplishment when the juniors earned berths in this week’s national championship meet in Indianapolis.

Weidner waited a full year for a chance to compete in the NCAA meet after falling three-hundredths of a second shy of qualifying last season.

Hansen was down to her final attempt in the 100-yard freestyle in the season’s last meet before securing a spot in the NCAA field.

“It was do-or-die and I just was really able to push it that hard. It felt amazing,” Hansen said of her Feb. 27 swim at the Bulldog Last Chance Invitational in Athens, Ga. “I didn’t make the time (in her first attempt), which was really disappointing. I asked to time trial it because I really thought I could use that feeling to go even faster.”

Hansen turned in the second fastest time in program history to join Weidner at the NCAA Women’s Swimming and Diving Championships, which open today at Indiana University Natatorium. Weidner and Hansen are scheduled to begin their competitions on Thursday.

Diver Madison Sthamann survived a pressure-packed qualifying process as well and earned a trip to Indianapolis with a second-place finish in the platform event at the NCAA Zone E Qualifying Meet in Flagstaff, Ariz., last week. The junior also will compete in the 3-meter this week.

UH will have two swimmers entered in the women’s meet for the first time since 2006 and has sent a diver to the NCAAs in each of the past four years and 11 of the past 12.

Weidner qualified in the 200-yard individual medley with a time of 1:56.32, giving her the 23rd seed in the field of 40 swimmers. She also was invited to compete in the 100 and 200 freestyle, an event headlined by Stanford teammates and Olympic gold medalists Simone Manuel and Katie Ledecky.

After coming agonizingly close to the NCAA standard last year, Weidner cut 11⁄2 seconds off her previous best in the 200 IM this season and “I’m already thinking I can go faster,” she said.

Weidner had never attempted the IM before giving it a shot at the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation championships as a freshman and earned a bronze that week.

“That was really surprising, and from then on I got surprisingly better,” Weidner said. “I really like to swim all four strokes and improved a lot in my breaststroke. So it all worked out somehow.”

Hansen, originally from Iceland, qualified for the 100 free with a time of 48.55 and also will swim the 50 and 200 free.

She broke an NCAA D-II record in the 50 free while swimming for Nova Southeastern University two years ago. She set competing at the D-I meet as a goal when she transferred to UH with her fiance, Metin Aydin, who qualified for next week’s NCAA men’s championship.

The pursuit of individual goals this season contributed to collective success as well. Weidner, Hansen and Sthamann, a junior transfer from LSU, all turned in record-breaking performances at the MPSF championships last month in Los Angeles to help the Rainbow Wahine capture the program’s second conference championship in three years.

“It’s pretty spectacular,” first-year UH swimming coach Dan Schemmel said. “The team really embraced the new coaching staff, and for us to end the season with a championship on the women’s side and a higher finish on the men’s side and to bring five people to the NCAAs (including Aydin and men’s diver Johan Sandell) is just an awesome way to end the season.”