Dec. 2, 2006
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind.- The No. 19 Notre Dame women’s swimming and diving team (3-0) received a few strong performance from senior Katie Carroll (Toledo, Ohio/Notre Dame Academy), on the second day of the prestigious U.S. Open Swim hosted by Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind. on Friday, Dec. 1. The Irish currently stands 14th as a team with 23 points after the completion of 129 events.
Carroll and the rest of the 400-meter medley relay team of Caroline Johnson (Springfield, Mo./Glendale), Julia Quinn (Evanston, Ill./Evanston) and Christa Riggins (Phoenix, Ariz./Sunnyslope), after winning the preliminaries, placed fourth in the finals with a time of 4:20.33.
Carroll also had two solid individual finishes in the 200-meter freestyle and 100-meter butterfly. The senior finished ninth in the 200-meter freestyle with her time of 2:03.75 and 17th in the 100-meter butterfly with a time of 1:02.67.
Junior Caroline Johnson also finished 17th in the 100-meter backstroke (1:04.37). This time qualifies her for the 2008 U.S. Olympic Trials and is the first time she made the cut. Rounding out the top finishers Riggins was 16th in the 200-meter freestyle and freshman Maggie Behrens (Munster, Ind./Munster) was 12th in the 200-meter individual medley time trial.
Fellow freshman Stacey Nedrud (Melbourne Beach, Fla./Cocoa Beach) also had solid showing in the time trails of her event, as she placed second in the 200-meter backstroke time trials with her time of 2:25.82
The Notre Dame divers also competed in the Ohio State Invitational and were led by sophomore Lucy Hirt’s (Mundelein, Ill./Mundelein) who totaled 228.80 points to place 16th in the preliminaries. Freshman Natalie Stitt (Holland, Mich./West Ottawa) finished 17th , while junior Tara Hyer (Tampa, Fla./Academy of Holy Names) and freshman Tiffany Robak finished 20th and 23rd, respectively all in the preliminaries of the three-meter diving.
Next, Notre Dame continues competing in the U.S. Open Swim on Saturday, Dec. 2. The Irish divers also will continue competing in the Ohio State Invitational in Columbus, Ohio on the same day.