Jan. 16, 2009
NOTRE DAME, Ind. – Junior John Lytle swept the 50 and 100 Free events during a 2008 dual meet against Northwestern and replicated the feat against the Wildcats in the 2009 edition of the matchup Friday at the Rolfs Aquatic Center. Diver Michael Bulfin, who took home gold off the 1- and 3-meter board, joined Lytle in the double-win column. Despite the efforts, Notre Dame fell to Northwestern by a 175-125 margin.
“Coming into this meet we wanted three things. We wanted to be faster than last week; we were. We wanted to be approaching or exceeding our best dual meet times outside of a championship meet, and in a lot of cases we were there, sometimes life-time best and season-best times. We also wanted a win. We didn’t get that.
“The divers dove extremely well and this is two weeks in a row in which they’ve been making a strong move. A lot of the races tonight were tight. Early, in the first half of the meet and to Northwestern’s credit, they won the touch-out in every race. Since you have a finite number of points that are plus/minus, if you were to reverse every one of those then you have a totally different meet. I think, although it was a 50-point margin, the meet was much closer than the score. What we take away from is that we’re making some improvement and we know we want to be pretty focused on our finishes now, and we’ve got to race faster tomorrow.”
Next up for the Irish (3-5) is a dual meet at Oakland on Saturday (Jan. 17). Live stats will be available at UND.com.
200 Medley Relay: Jeff Wood (24.29) put the Irish in the mix with a solid backstroke, but Northwestern took advantage of a pair of shrap swims in the breast and fly to finish first and second in the event … Brian Maloy, MacKenzie LeBlanc and John Lytle joined Wood to finish third in 1:35.00.
1,000 Free: Steven Brus led the pack for the first half of the race … Andrew Deters inched his way into the lead as Northwestern’s John Frutiger stepped up to challenge the Irish duo … Deters led by over a body length heading into the stretch and touched first in 9:29.03* … Brus (9:35.52*) collected fourth-place honors.
200 Free: Northwestern finished 1-2, just ahead of third-place Andrew Hoffman (1:41.53) … Michael Sullivan (1:44.76*) was fourth and Joshua Nosal (1:45.84) was fifth.
100 Back: Wood came through in 52.14 for third … he was followed by Bill Bauman (52.23) and Kevin Rahill (54.07).
100 Breast: Behind a pair of Wildcats were Notre Dame’s Daniel Rave (59.63), Joseph Raycroft (59.70) and Maloy (1:01.51).
200 Fly: The Wildcats claimed the first three podium positions … MacKenzie LeBlanc was fourth in 1:53.36.
50 Free: The first win of the evening came off the stroke of Lytle … he continued his streak of forceful sprints with a 20.96 … Danny Lutkus was fourth in 21.58.
1-meter Diving: Bulfin put on a showcase with a 387.97 … Eric Lex (333.22), Wesley Villaflor (324.00), Caleb Dunnichay (324.00) and Nathan Geary (313.65) were next in line.
100 Free: Lytle extended his dominance with a second win in as many tries … his 45.37 took first, while Hoffman bumped the board in 46.59.
200 Back: Sullivan just out-touched the third-place Wildcat to finish second in 1:53.04 … Christopher Wills (1:55.01) and Jonathan Whitcomb (1:55.34) were fourth and fifth, respectively.
200 Breast: Rave outstretched the opposition to finish second in 2:06.16 … Northwestern’s Alex Tyler handled the field with a 2:04.82 … Raycroft was fifth in 2:09.87*.
500 Free: Brus (4:40.28) battled for a third-place standing … Wood was third in 4:43.66.
100 Fly: LeBlanc flew to a bronze finish with a 51.50 … Patrick Augustyn hustled for fourth in 51.96.
3-meter Diving: With a 334.65, Bulfin eased to the victory … Lex (315.00) was second and Villaflor (288.07) was fourth.
400 Individual Medley: Sullivan fought off a charging Wildcat for second … he stayed in the hunt for first briefly but ended up in second with a 4:04.21 … Deters (4:06.85) and Christopher Wills (4:12.90) took fourth and fifth.
800 Free Relay: Each of the four swimmers in the highest-placing Irish squad (Lytle, Hoffman, LeBlanc and Lutkus) punched in solid splits, but the quartet settled for second in 6:54.56.
* denotes season-best time
–ND–