MENS SWIMMING: Irish top Hornets in opener
By JOE HETTLER
Associate Sports Editor
Notre Dame mens swimming coach Tim Welsh wanted his team to control the meet from the start against Kalamazoo Friday.
The Irish did just that.
Notre Dame won four of the first five races and cruised to a 139-96 victory in their first dual meet of the season.
"At the beginning of the meet, Coach said that he really wanted us to take the meet out and really establish a tone very early in the meet by swimming hard right at the beginning," sophomore Frank Krakowski said. "That's what we did. Everyone really contributed to the win because we spread the team out a little bit and gave everyone a chance to get a `W'."
Krakowski led the Irish by winning the 50-yard freestyle and the 100-yard relay, while fellow sophomore Matt Bertke added a win in the 1,000-yard freestyle.
Krakowski was not surprised Notre Dame won the meet so convincingly.
"Kalamazoo is definitely not one of the toughest teams on our schedule, but it was really nice to win," Krakowski said. "We practiced really hard that day, we swam 5,000 yards and lifted after that. So it was nice to still be able to swim fast after all that."
The Irish got contributions from Andy Maggio, Patrick Davis and J.R. Teddy. Matt Hyde, Tyler Grenda, Patrick Heffernan and Travis Kline finished second in the medley relay with a time of 3:40.49. The foursome of Krakowski, Doug Bauman, Jason Fitzpatrick and Teddy finished first in the event.
Notre Dame put the meet away when four Irish swimmers took the first four spots in the 200-yard individual medley, led by first-place finisher David Mosian.
Notre Dame travels to Colorado to face the Air Force Academy Oct. 18.
Krakowski thinks that meet will be a good test for the Irish.
"They should be pretty tough," Krakowski said. "From what the coaches said and what I've [seen online], they match up with us pretty tough. I don't know if we'll be practicing as much during that day but we'll be taking the week as a regular week and go up there and see how we do."
All Sports Stories for Monday, October 14, 2002
