Team swims to highest rank in history
By NOREEN GILLESPIE
Sports Writer
Gathering his swimmers together for a normal pre-competition pep talk at the Minnesota Invitational, Irish head coach Bailey Weathers had some not-so-normal news to deliver his swimmers.
The team, at the halfway point of its dual meet season, had been elevated to 13th in dual meet rankings — the highest any women's Irish swimming and diving team had ever been ranked.
It was exactly the motivation the team needed to start the weekend.
"It definitely got people excited to swim," said co-captain Tara Riggs. "It makes us feel like we're right on track."
The team easily cruised to a more than 300-point victory against the University of Wisconsin, who defeated the Irish at last year's NCAA Championships. The Irish also knocked off the host team, University of Minnesota, to claim their first-ever victory at the multi-team competition.
The win was just the latest in a series of early-season victories for the Irish swimmers, who are undefeated in dual meet competition and for the first time, ranked among the best in the nation. A team that has won the Big East Championships six times, the 2001-02 season has the team looking to compete on the national level, rather than just the conference championships.
"I think this is the best team we've ever had," said Weathers. "We've got unusually good depth in the program. [The rankings] are important to the girls in terms of getting credit for what they're doing ... but we still tend to take each meet one at a time."
Beyond the team ranking, the Irish have also catapulted several swimmers into the national top 25 times, an achievement that the team is taking as an early-season sign of possible NCAA success.
Sophomore Marie Labosky ranks sixth in the 1,000-yard freestyle and 18th in the 400-yard individual medley. Freshman Kristen Peterson is 20th in the 100-yard backstroke, and 10th in the 200-backstroke. Sophomore Laurie Musgrave is 20th in both the 100 and 200-yard breastroke. Sophomore Lisa D'Olier is 17th in the 100-yard butterfly and 22nd in the 200-yard butterfly.
Senior Kelly Hecking is ranked ninth in the 100-yard backstroke and 25th in the 200-yard backstroke. Senior Carrie Nixon, after sitting out last season due to a shoulder injury, holds the team's highest individual national ranking, earning second place in the 50-yard freestyle. Nixon also earned a national berth in the 100-yard freestyle, ranked 14th. And the 200-yard freestyle relay is ranked first in the country.
For a team that's been looking to make the transition from a dominant conference team to a dominant national team, the mid-season rankings are good news — and right where we want to be.
At the beginning of the season, the team sat down and decided it wanted to be a team that focused more on the national championships than the Big East Championships, Riggs said. During a preseason goal meeting, the squad decided it wanted one thing: to be a top 10 team.
"We've wanted to compete on the national level for awhile," Riggs said. "After we signed the freshman class last year, the team's really pulled together to chance the focus. We want to shift to the mentality that we can be a national level team, not just Big East champions."
That doesn't mean, however, that the team will be taking Big East lightly. While the meet is a little more comfortable with a national ranking padding the season behind them, the Irish still take pride in the recent announcement that Irish swimmers have the top times in every event. But many are looking to see if they can get the times needed to qualify for nationals.
And it's because they want more.
"It's awesome, it's the highest we've ever been ranked, but we're not going to accept that. We want more," said Labosky. "Everybody's so excited about where we're ranked we just keep feeding off that."
The Irish don't hit the championship season until late February, and still have dual meets and the Notre Dame Invitational left ahead of them in the regular season. But the midseason success has been a motivator for the team, Riggs said.
"It's just a step along the way," she said. "We still want to be top 10 ... now we're wondering if maybe we can be better than top 10."
All Sports Stories for Tuesday, November 27, 2001
