Team captain Michael Sullivan did his part in leading Notre Dame to four school records Friday at the BIG EAST meet.

Third Day Of League Meet Sees Four School Records Fall

Feb. 18, 2011

Complete Results

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – A quartet of Notre Dame student-athletes set school records Friday evening during day three of men’s swimming and diving competition at the BIG EAST Conference Championships. Team captain Michael Sullivan (400 individual medley), Christopher Johnson (100 breast) and Petar Petrovic (100 back) each cemented their name into the Notre Dame annals with remarkable performances in front of a packed house at Wright Natatorium.

The evening was capped off with a program-best benchmark of 3:15.10 in the 400 medley relay. Johnson and Petrovic had a hand in that effort as well.

“You can’t swim much better than we did today,” Irish head coach Tim Welsh said. “We had a good morning during preliminaries and finished with a strong night with University records all over the place. We knew this was going to be a seven-session meet, and it’s going to take every bit of the final sessions to determine the winner of this one.”

The Irish (570.5 pts.) have a bit of ground to gain on the final day of competition with Louisville (591) leading the field.

Notre Dame finishes the BIG EAST meet at 10:00 a.m. (ET) on Saturday with preliminary races. The finals will start at 6:00 p.m.

Live results and video will be available at UND.com.

400 Individual Medley: After going 3:52.93 in the prelims, Sullivan broke his own school record with a 3:50.94 in the finals for a third-place finish … he was flanked by P.J. Koppel (3:53.93), who was fifth, and Colin Babcock (3:55.45), who was seventh … Sullivan and Koppel logged NCAA B-cut times … Sullivan previously set the school record of 3:51.13 at the 2009 league meet.

100 Butterfly: The finals featured Bill Bass’ 48.26 performance to bring home a bronze medal … Joshua Nosal (50.01) was eighth in the final heat.

200 Free: Frank Dyer led until the midway point, when Louisville’s Joao De Lucca took off … the Cardinal standout finished first in 1:35.07 for a league record, while Dyer touched second in 1:36.75 … Kevin Overholt (1:39.70) was seventh and Steven Brus (1:39.77) took eighth for the Irish.

100 Breast: Johnson went stroke-for-stroke with Louisville’s Kameron Chastain in a tremendous race that went down to the final touch … in the end, Chastain took first in 53.45 while Johnson became the first Notre Dame swimmer ever to crack the 54-second mark in the event at 53.75 … the swim topped his school-record effort of 54.34 registered during the prelims, which bettered Tim Randolph’s 54.47 set in 2006 … it was the second-oldest record in the Irish annals.

100 Back: Marshall Sherman (49.72) won his preliminary race and four Irish swimmers finished among the top eight in the finals … Petrovic, who broke his own school record with a 48.29 in the prelims, finished third in the finals with another top time of 47.95 … Thomas Van Volkenburg (49.67) was sixth, Christopher Wills (49.91) was seventh and Nosal (50.32) was eighth.

400 Medley Relay: Petrovic, Bass, Johnson and Dyer blasted through in 3:15.10 … that mark reset the school record of 3:15.25 that lasted just one year … the foursome finished third.

–ND–