Irish hold slim lead, break three school records
By ANDREW SOUKUP
Sports Writer
UNIONDALE, N.Y.
With 50 yards of freestyle left to go in the women's 200-yard individual medley, it appeared as if the duel between Notre Dame Marie Labosky and Miami's Jen Weir would be decided by fractions of a second.
After all, Labosky had pushed off the wall a mere three hundredths of a second ahead of the defending Big East champion.
But the talented freshman, swimming her strongest stroke and backed by a season of intense endurance swimming, pulled a body length ahead of Weir to win her first-ever Big East title by a second and a half in the first day of the Big East Swimming Championships.
The Irish, who won two events and set three school records, hold a slim lead after the first day of competition. Notre Dame has 184 points, followed by Miami, who has 176 points. Virginia Tech sits in third place with 159.5 points.
"I just wanted to go and have a good time — that's what helps me swim fast, staying relaxed. I was feeding off the fact that I had two other awesome girls in the same heat," Labosky said.
The freshman actually trailed for most of the race, but pulled even in the breaststroke and then surged ahead in the last 25 yards.
Her time in the finals, 2:01.87, was actually slower than the school-record 2:01.74 she swam in the preliminaries. Labosky broke Tanya Williams' 1990 mark, which was the oldest record remaining at Notre Dame.
"I felt worse [in the finals] than this morning," she said. "I'm a distance swimmer and I knew I could bring it home. I get touched out in the end so much, and I just thought `I'm not going to let that happen this time.'"
The four members of the women's 400-yard medley relay team were the only other Irish swimmers to win an event, shattering the school record they set last year at the Big East championship meet in the process.
The team of Kelly Hecking, Allison Lloyd, Lisa D'Olier and Danielle Hulick had the rest of the Irish swim team on their feet screaming.
Hecking led off the relay with a personal best 55.16, breaking William's 1993 school record. As each swimmer finished their 100-yard leg, the Irish women broke out in cheers as they realized the relay team was still on pace to set the record.
When Hulick finished six seconds ahead of second-place Virginia Tech, the Notre Dame section erupted into cheers and raised their arms in triumph. In the excitement, coach Bailey Weathers was knocked off the bleachers by exuberant Notre Dame swimmers congratulating each other.
"They had a great time, and they even did it without Carrie [Nixon, who is not competing because of an injury]," he said.
The Irish completely dominated the 400-yard individual medley. In the preliminaries, both Labosky and freshman Lisa Garcia swam NCAA provisional qualifying times. In the finals, Garcia took fourth and D'Olier placed eighth.
Tiffany O'Brien won the consolation finals, while Laurie Musgrave and Lloyd took sixth and seventh. In all, Notre Dame scored 60 points in this event.
Sophomore Nicole Kohrt turned in the most surprising performance of the evening in the 500-yard freestyle. Before today's competition, the fastest
Kohrt had ever swum in that event was 5:05.99.
But the sophomore knocked off more than 12 seconds in the preliminary competition, and by swimming 4:54.82 earned NCAA finals consideration. Kohrt followed her performance with a 4:55.68 in the finals, fast enough for fifth place.
"I didn't even know what the cut was," she said. "I got out of the water, and they told me `you got the cut'. I was just in awe —it was just unbelievable. I never thought I could swim that fast."
Heather Mattingly had an outstanding day on the three-meter springboard. She scored 467 points and placed sixth place, behind five sensational Miami divers.
She will compete again today in the one-meter competition.
While the women had several outstanding individual performances, Weathers didn't seem that pleased with the overall effort.
"I was really disappointed in the 500 and in the sprints, but those have been problems all year long," he said. "We really missed Carrie today."
Before the standings were posted, Weathers said, "I don't even think we're in first."
He let out a visible sigh when meet officials announced that the Irish sat atop the scoreboard.
"We've got a tough road ahead of us if we want to win," he said.
In the 500-yard freestyle, Lindsay Moorhead finished just three tenths of a second behind Kohrt and placed seventh. But last year's Big East champion in the 500, Kristen Van Saun, who entered the competition seeded sixth, finished a disappointing 14th.
It was obvious that the Irish missed Nixon. Her time last year in the 50-yard freestyle, 22.58, was nearly three-quarters of a second faster than this year's champion. The only Irish entry in that event, Hulick, took 12th place with a personal best 23.92.
"We're satisfied with that," Weathers said. "That's about what we thought we'd get out of her. You can tell how much it hurts not having Carrie in that event and in the 200 free relay."
The 200-yard freestyle relay of Brooke Davey, Hulick, Sarah Bowman and Hecking took fifth place with a season-best time of 1:34.61, two seconds behind winner West Virginia.
The Irish will continue competition today and Saturday. Today's competition
features a showdown between Labosky and Olympian Maddy Crippen in the 400-yard individual medley as well as the individual debut of Hecking, Lloyd, and Musgrave in their specialty events.
All Sports Stories for Friday, February 16, 2001
