Womens squad claims the early lead in the Big East Championships
By: PAT LEONARD
Sports Writer
UNIONDALE, N.Y.
Rutgers won the 400-meter medley relay in Thursday's final event to close the gap, but the Notre Dame womens swimming and diving team emerged from the first day of competition at the Big East Championships in Uniondale, N.Y. in first place with 176 total points.
Rutgers is close behind with 165 points, while Miami's 116 points put them in a distant third.
The 400 medley relay went down to the wire. Rutgers had a time of 3 minutes, 42.25 seconds for first, inching out Notre Dame's time of 3:42.33. Still, this day belonged to Notre Dame coach Bailey Weathers and the defending Big East champions.
"That's the second-fastest relay time ever as a team, which is incredible because none of those girls except for Danielle [Hulick] in her freshman year have swam it before," Weathers said.
After good showings across the board in the morning's preliminary events, the 200-meter freestyle relay team of Katie Eckholt, Hulick, tri-captain Heidi Hendrick and Kristen Peterson won the night's first womens event with a time of 1:33.21. Hulick and Eckholt swam on this same relay team with Carrie Nixon and Kelly Hecking last season, and that set a conference record with a time of 1:32.01.
"I thought [the 200 freestyle relay] would be a real challenge for us," Weathers said. "Virginia Tech and Rutgers are good there so I was really pleased with that. I think we could have been a little bit faster. Our exchanges were pretty conservative, but I thought overall it was a good swim."
Hulick, a three-time Big East champion prior to Thursday's events, won the relay and her first individual championship, the 50-meter freestyle. She won the 50-meter freestyle in 22.93 seconds and missed an NCAA A-cut time by .04 seconds.
The other major victory for the Irish came when junior Lisa Garcia stole the 200-meter individual medley from teammate and defending Big East champion Marie Labosky. Garcia won with a time of 2:01.21, ousting second-place Pittsburgh swimmer Carolyne Savini by .47 seconds. Labosky (2:03.37) came in sixth place and freshman Courtney Choura (2:03.47) placed seventh.
Even more notable is Garcia's record-setting time in the preliminary heat, which she completed in 2:01.00, breaking the old record of Miami's Jennifer Weir, who swam the 200 individual medley in 2:01.43 in 2000.
"I felt really strong this morning so I went into tonight with a lot of confidence," Garcia said. "And I'm just excited to swim. This team's been swimming well so that helped me [and] psyched me up a lot. Starting off winning the relay tonight was awesome."
Meghan Perry-Eaton took second in the 3-meter diving. Perry-Eaton finished with 501.05 points in the final round behind only one Miami diver.
The rest of the team became motivated, as well. The Irish had three swimmers place in the top two of the 500 freestyle heats. Freshman Christel Bouvron (4:57.33), senior Nicole Kohrt (4:58.44) and sophomore Kelli Barton (4:59.76) placed 13th, 14th and 15th, respectively. First place in the 500 freestyle went to Becky Koch of Villanova, who swam the event in 4:42.19.
In the 50 freestyle, Eckholt took sixth with a time of 23.58. Hendrick won the consolation heat and took ninth place, and Peterson came in 14th.
Weathers knows his team is deep and is pleased with the effort and results so far.
"We thought if we could end in fourth place today we could still have a real good chance of winning the meet," he said.
With the first-day lead, it looks like the Irish are in good position.
All Sports Stories for Friday, February 21, 2003
