Notre Dame looks to dominate Big East Championships
By ANDREW SOUKUP
Sports Writer
It's not a question of if the women's swim team will win their fifth consecutive Big East title this weekend.
It's how much they will win by.
The No. 15 Notre Dame women's swim team begins their defense of the Big East Conference Championship today in Long Island, N.Y., and Irish coaches are expecting yet another conference championship.
The women have won the Big East title for the last four years, an amazing feat considering that the Irish have only been in the Big East for five years.
In fact, when Notre Dame won last year with 829.5 points, they crushed runner-up Rutgers by 392.5 points.
Of course, last year the Irish had Carrie Nixon, who won three individual events and anchored four relays, along with winning the title of Big East Swimmer of the Year. But early this year, the All-American was knocked out of competition with a shoulder injury.
However, even without Nixon, Notre Dame head coach Bailey Weathers still expects to win this weekend.
One of the main reasons Weathers is so confident is because he has a solid group of veterans returning that have championship meet experience. Five Irish swimmers who won individual events or competed on a winning relay will be returning to the pool this weekend.
Kelly Hecking headlines the list of returning champions. The junior backstroker has been virtually unstoppable in her specialty events so far this season. In the 100 yard backstroke, an event she has won since 1999 at the conference meet, Hecking's best time is 55.7 seconds, nearly two seconds ahead of her nearest challenge, and in the 200-yard backstroke, her 2:00.32 is three seconds ahead of the second-seeded swimmer.
At last year's Big East Championships, Notre Dame won all five relay events, but this season, the relays haven't received much attention. Weathers likes to switch his relay teams around, and at press time, he had not yet decided which swimmers would be on which relay. Nevertheless, Irish relays are seeded among the top five in all five relays, including a No. 1 seed in both the 400-yard freestyle relay and the 400-yard medley relay. Hecking is among those expected to be on a relay team, as is Danielle Hulick, Amy Deger, Brooke Davey, Allison Lloyd and Brenda Reilly.
With their fifth straight title an almost certainty, the Irish are turning their attention toward achieving solid individual performances. Notre Dame has used the past three weeks to taper down their training in order to achieve qualifying times for the NCAA Championships next month. So far, only Hecking and freshman Marie Labosky have achieved provisional qualifying times.
Weathers hopes senior co-captain Kristen Van Saun will be one of those athletes who makes the NCAA cut. The only returning Big East individual champion, aside from Hecking, Van Saun is seeded sixth in the 500-yard freestyle with a season-best time of 4:58.42. The senior will also compete in the 1,650-yard freestyle.
But Van Saun, along with many of the other upperclassmen, has been outshined by Notre Dame's talented freshman class this season. In particular, Labosky, arguably one of Notre Dame's most versatile swimmers, has been a major factor in Notre Dame's success this season. Labosky is seeded first in three events, two of which she will compete in side by side with Van Saun and sophomore Lindsay Moorhead, and second in another. However, two of the events, the 500 freestyle and the 200 individual medley, that Labosky is seeded first in are swum back-to-back, and it was unclear if Weathers was planning on swimming the freshman in both events.
One of the most consistent performers this year for the Irish has been Heather Mattingly. The junior diver, who holds all four Notre Dame diving records, has won her last six consecutive diving competitions. But Mattingly will face a difficult opponent in Miami's Jenny Keim. The senior won last year's Big East title and took eighth at the Sydney Olympics.
Hulick has picked up some of the slack left by Carrie Nixon, and may even contend for a Big East title in the shorter freestyle events. The freshman is seeded fifth in both the 50 and the 100-yard freestyle events. In addition, Hulick will most likely swim on most of Notre Dame's relay teams.
The Irish also have incredible depth in the individual medley events.
Labosky, senior Tiffany O'Brien, Deger and Garcia sit in the top ten of the 200-yard individual medley. In the 400-yard individual medley, although Labosky is seeded second, her fastest time this season is still seven seconds behind Villanova's Maddy Crippen, who took sixth in this event at the Sydney Olympics. Still, the Irish have four swimmers ranked in the top eight.
The Irish butterfly specialists, mostly freshmen, are also seeded very high. Sophomore Amy Deger and freshmen Lisa Garcia, Lisa D'Olier and Sarah Bowman are ranked among the top eight in the 100 yard butterfly and sit in the top five of the 200 yard butterfly.
Junior Allison Lloyd and freshman Laurie Musgrave are only eight hundredths of a second apart in the 100-yard breaststroke and have three tenths of a second between them in the 200-yard breaststroke. Both are seeded among the top six in each event.
The Big East championships begin in Long Island today and extend until Saturday. Preliminary competition begins at 10:30 a.m., and the finals begin at 6:30 p.m.
All Sports Stories for Thursday, February 15, 2001
