Notre Dame men rally from sixth after day one to finish fourth
By SHEILA EGTS
Sports Writer
UNIONDALE, N.Y.
The Irish did not claim the second-place finish they hoped for entering the Big East Championships, but Saturday was a night of celebration nonetheless.
"We got faster and scored more points, we just stayed in the same place. It's clearly a sign of how much improvement is taking place throughout the Big East Conference," said Irish head coach Tim Welsh. "We are getting better and so is the meet."
The men rebounded from a rough set of races on Thursday and moved up from sixth place to fourth by the end of Friday's events. Matt Bertke, Jonathan Pierce, and J.R. Teddy swam personal bests in the 1650-yard freestyle on Saturday, finishing fourth, fifth and seventh respectively. Pierce also set a Notre Dame record in the 400-yard individual medley with a time of 3:56.34, finishing second for the Irish.
Notre Dame's top diver, Andy Maggio, placed sixth in the three-meter diving and fifth in the one-meter diving.
Top eight finishes from Jason Colettis in the 200-yard backstroke and Jason Fitzpatrick in the 200-yard breaststroke on Saturday helped the team maintain their fourth-place standing while trying to close the gap on Virginia Tech in third.
All five Notre Dame seniors swam on Saturday night and all five posted lifetime best times in their events, leaving a legacy for the underclassmen.
"It will be hard to replace great swimmers like Jonathan Pierce, but we have a lot of youth in this team," said sophomore distance swimmer J.R. Teddy. "This was a growing experience for us."
According to Welsh, the only disappointments stemmed from a misplaced focus on the meet. The Irish focused on a team place that they could not control instead of on team improvement that they could control.
"It's frustrating not to see progress. But if you look at total points scored and how much the conference has improved, we've made a tremendous jump," said senior co-captain Mike Koss. "We got some great recruits coming in next year. I'm really excited for the guys. In the future, I think we can take second and even first."
Notre Dame finished with 390 points, but hoped to eventually conquer Pittsburgh, who won the conference championship with 807 points.
"Today was two days for our team," said Welsh. "It was a strong last day of this season, and a strong first day for next season."
All Sports Stories for Monday, February 25, 2002
