Irish swimmers upset Wolverines
By NOREEN GILLESPIE
Saint Mary's Editor
If last week's victory over No. 9 Northwestern taught the Notre Dame women's swim team anything, it was that Notre Dame could pull out the close ones.
The timing couldn't have been better. With their final dual meet against No. 8 Michigan only a week away, No. 23 Notre Dame needed a little bit of encouragement — and a big boost of confidence.
With an unbeaten dual meet record and their first victory against a top 10 team all season, the Irish had little to worry about.
Until Friday night.
Entering a weekend with arguably their two most important dual meets of the season on the slate, Michigan walked into their meet with Northwestern and made a statement — they weren't going to lose. Handing the Wildcats a solid defeat, suddenly, that top 10 victory for Notre Dame was looking less and less sturdy.
"We thought we had a chance when we looked at their meet results a couple of weeks ago," said women's head coach Bailey Weathers. "When we knew they beat Northwestern, we didn't change the meet at all, but we were surprised. They swam a lot faster than they had all season."
But the Irish knew how to pull out the close ones.
They had never defeated the Wolverines in match history, and no women's swim team has ever gone undefeated in regular season. With both meet odds and history stacked against them, the Irish got an unexpected blessing — the Wolverines were tired.
"It can be pretty hard to swim Friday and Saturday," Weathers said. "They had not swam anybody this tough all season. These were big dual meets for them, and they swam the best they could. We were as good as we were all season."
If not better.
The Irish won 11 of 16 events to hand the Wolverines a decisive defeat 170-128.
Sophomore Kelly Hecking led the Irish with three wins, posting victories in the 100 backstroke, 200 backstroke, and accompanied Allison Lloyd, Elizabeth Barger and Carrie Nixon to win the 200 medley relay. The squad also found support in double wins from junior distance swimmer Kristen Van Saun, who swept the distance freestyle events. Barger captured the 100 butterfly, and Nixon out touched Michigan's Jennifer Crisman for a win in the 50 freestyle. Shannon Suddarth posted a win in the 200 breastroke, and Alison Newell grabbed another first place finish in the 200 butterfly.
The Irish also held strong on the boards, with senior Gina Ketelhohn cleaning up the one and three meter diving events for the team. Ketelhohn's score of 283.12 was enough to set a school record for the Irish, eclipsing sophomore Heather Mattingly's mark of 282.12 in October of 1998.
Maintaining their lead throughout the meet, while going undefeated was in the back of their minds, it was nothing they had been striving for all season, Weathers said.
"It was a possibility, but it wasn't one of our goals," Weathers said. "That's the kind of goal that you set yourself up to fail with. Being perfect for each dual meet is hard to do. Our goal was just not to lose first semester."
With the undefeated record behind them, the record doesn't change much in the team's approach to Big East Championships, held Feb. 17-20 in Uniondale, N.Y.
"Our goal is always to win conference," Weathers said. "But the kids are very, very confident. This is the first undefeated women's swim team at Notre Dame. Beating these two top 10 teams back to back is a big step."
All Sports Stories for Tuesday, February 1, 2000
