For the second straight day, senior Ted Brown captured two individual victories to help propel the Irish to a dual meet victory.

Irish Men And Women Off To Solid Starts At BIG EAST Championships

Feb. 15, 2006

Results

EAST MEADOW, N.Y. – The Notre Dame men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams combined to establish three school records during the first five events of the 2006 BIG EAST Swimming and Diving Championships in the Nassau County Aquatics Center on Thursday evening. The Fighting Irish men have jumped out to a 12-point lead over Syracuse and the rest of the 11-team field, while the Irish women are 12 points behind Rutgers following the first session of action.

In the first men’s event of the night, Notre Dame’s team of Brian Freeman, Ted Brown, Rob Seery and Louis Cavadini took the 800-yard freestyle relay in a school-record and NCAA consideration time of 6:35.47. The win marked the first BIG EAST title for all four members of the Irish relay squad and the third BIG EAST relay title in program history.

Another school record went down in the men’s 200-yard medley relay as Doug Bauman, Tim Randolph, Tim Kegelman and Nick Fanslau combined to post a time of 1:30.04, which placed them second behind West Virginia (1:29.36).

The Notre Dame women opened competition by placing two divers in the top eight in Thursday night’s finals. Tara Hyer and Lucy Hirt made it out of Thursday’s prelims with respective point totals of 224.50 and 209.00 to place fourth and eighth heading into the evening. During the evening, Hyer compiled 225.15 points to place fifth and Hirt posted 203.15 to place eighth. Connecticut’s Allison Coleman won with 263.75 points in the finals.

The Irish women opened swimming action with a second-place finish in the 800-yard freestyle relay as the quartet of Christa Riggins, Casey Wagner, Ellen Johnson and Katie Carroll swam a time of 7:19.46, which was nearly five seconds better than their previous season-best mark. Rutgers took first with a BIG EAST-record time of 7:13.94.

The women’s 200-yard freestyle relay featured another second-place finish for Notre Dame. Caroline Johnson, Julia Quinn, Jessica Stephens and Rebecca Grove established a school-record and NCAA consideration time of 1:41.91. That mark topped the previous BIG EAST record, however Rutgers did the same to take first in 1:41.76.

The final three days of competition will have preliminary events beginning at 10:30 a.m. and finals at 6:00 p.m. Thursday’s action will feature the 500-yard free, 200-yard IM, 50-yard free, 200-yard free relay and the men’s one-meter diving.

For more information on the 2006 BIG EAST Swimming & Diving Championships, including results from each day’s action, please log onto bigeast.org.

Stay up-to-date on the Notre Dame’s men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams by logging on to und.com or by calling the Notre Dame athletics hotline at (574) 631-3000.

–ND–