Irish look for luck as team hosts Shamrock Classic
By COLLEEN MCCARTHY
Sports Writer
This weekend's Shamrock Classic swim meet may be viewed as a "last chance" meet for some teams in attendance.
But the Notre Dame men's and women's swimming teams are approaching it like any other meet. They want to swim as fast as possible and qualify more swimmers for the NCAA Championships in March.
Hosted by Notre Dame, the Shamrock Classic on Saturday and Sunday is the last home meet for the Irish. For some teams, this will be the last swim before the NCAAs and an opportunity for swimmers who didn't participate in their conference championships to try for an NCAA qualifying berth.
"Some people will be here using this as a last chance meet; other teams will use it as a year end meet," said Tim Welsh, men's head swimming coach. "Our men will be doing both. We will have everyone on our team participating in this meet."
The Irish men also will swim against Eastern Michigan and Miami of Ohio, who will be sending the largest squads. Notre Dame's Big East rivals West Virginia and University of Pittsburgh, who won last week's Big East Championship, will send a few individuals to participate, as will several other universities.
After finishing second at the Big East Championship meet last weekend, the men's team hopes to take the momentum into the Classic.
"We're all prepared to be at our very best," said Welsh. "We train all year to go fast and this is our last chance to swim faster than we have all year."
Practices this week have been "looking sharp," said Welsh.
"This is a smaller meet but we like ending the season at home and as a team," he said.
"We've continued to advance our speed by resting this week," he said, "and we want to see if we can be even faster than we were last weekend."
The team will evaluate their performance this weekend based on how fast their times are in events.
"We will measure how well we do this weekend by how fast we go," said Welsh. "If we go faster than we did last week or faster than we have in our lives, we'll consider it a successful meet."
After crushing their competition in the Big East Championship meet last weekend to win their fourth-straight title, the women seek to qualify more swimmers for the NCAA Championships in this weekend's meet.
"This is more of a meet for kids who didn't get to swim at the conference meet," said Bailey Weathers, women's head swimming coach. "We don't worry about scores so much at this meet because we usually win easily because we have all our kids participating."
Swimming standouts and NCAA qualifiers Carrie Nixon, Alison Newell and Shannon Suddarth will see limited action this weekend, said Weathers. They most likely will not swim individual events but rather participate in relay events against teams such as Michigan State and Southern Illinois.
Individuals expected to shine at this weekend's meet include freestyle swimmer freshman Katie Cavandini, Kerry White in the distance breaststroke, and freestyle sprinters Maureen Hillenmeyer, Liane Watkins and Christina Jackson.
All Sports Stories for Friday, February 25, 2000
