Jan. 29, 2010
NOTRE DAME, Ind. – Freshman Bill Bass won the 200 individual medley Friday evening at the Rolfs Aquatic Center in a season-best 1:50.70 to give Notre Dame its lone win in men’s swimming and diving action against three visiting teams. Notre Dame leads Denver (77-33) but trails Iowa (66-43) and Missouri (59-51) through the opening session of the Shamrock Invitational. Day two of the invite begins Saturday (Jan. 30) at 10:00 a.m. (ET). Live stats will be available at UND.com.
“I think that this has been a very competitive meet so far, and the energy from all the teams is excellent and the spirit is palpable,” Irish head coach Tim Welsh said. “Competitively, for the four teams here, it is a great start. It is the exactly the kind of pre-championship excitement that we hope to see and we are very happy with that. This is still a step along the way, and the BIG EAST Championship meet is still three weeks from now. We are very excited about building on what happened tonight and having an excellent morning.”
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200 Free Relay: John Lytle led off with a strong 21.03 to get the Irish off to a second-place touch after the first leg of the relay … Kevin Overholt stayed even with the field to keep the Irish in contention at the halfway point … Joshua Nosal powered to the wall within .08 seconds of both the first- and second-place squads as they anchors dove in … Andrew Hoffman’s effort came up just short, as the Irish finished third (1:22.68) in a race that had the crowd on its feet … the Iowa squad of Ryan Phelan, Duncan Partridge, Sean Hagan, and Jordan Huff took the top time with a readout of 1:22.36.
500 Freestyle: Swimming from the outside lane, Michael Sullivan swam to a solid third-place finish (4:35.28) to secure another bronze medal for the Irish … Iowa’s Paul Gordon took top honors in 4:30.16.
200 Individual Medley: Bass slowly edged up over the field through the butterfly and backstroke legs of the race … on the breaststroke, he gained a full-body length separation from the nearest competitor and did not look back from there … Bass took the first gold of the meet for the host Irish in a time of 1:50.70 … notably, Hoffman took seventh overall with a time of 1:55.09.
50 Freestyle: This sprint discipline of freestyle looked to be one of the closest races of the evening, and indeed it lived up to its billing … Duncan Partridge of Iowa and Jordan Hawley of Missouri tied for the top spot with times of 20.54 … Lytle was the highest Irish placer, turning in a fifth-place effort of 21.02.
3-meter Diving: Greg Destephen of Missouri took first (378.70) and Wesley Villaflor snagged second (367.15) … Denver’s Cody Stambaugh rounded out the podium for third (350.15).
400 Medley Relay: Petar Petrovic helped the Irish breakaway into the front-running group of three squads in the event during the backstroke … Christopher Johnson kept the race for second place behind the streaking Missouri squad throughout the breaststroke leg … Bass began to lose some slight ground to the other two squads … Lytle’s pool-best free split (44.37) was not enough to move the Irish up from their third-place finish (3:21.02) … Missouri’s squad of Jan Konarzewski, Michael Lopresti, Anders Melin, and Jordan Hawley took home the gold with their time of 3:19.43.
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